Alex Halperin: Illegal Pesticides in Legal Cannabis

Dr. Riley Kirk  0:12  
All right. Well, welcome back to the bioactive Podcast. Today I'm very excited to talk to an author, a writer and a investigator, I guess, Alex Halperin, who recently co authored a piece that was titled The dirty secret of California's legal weed. And LA Times slash weed week investigation finds alarming levels of pesticides and cannabis products at dispensaries across the state. And I know this is an article that's been talked about a lot and definitely opened a lot of eyes. So Alex, welcome to the show. And if you could give a quick introduction just to who you are, and kind of what you do before we dive into this article a little more. Sure,

Alex Helperin  0:54  
well, first of all, thanks so much for having me. Um, my name is Alex hopper. And I'm a I'm a reporter, I guess, a business reporter. And I've been covering primarily the cannabis industry for the for the last 10 years. So sort of almost all of that sort of legalization era. And I write for a lot of publications, but mainly for my newsletter weed week, which covers the industry largely in in California.

Dr. Riley Kirk  1:26  
Awesome. And I'm also going to put the link to the show notes for this article in weed week. If anybody wants to just subscribe and read it. You don't need to pay anything. You just need to become a subscriber. And it's open access for anyone there. So are you a cannabis consumer, just out of curiosity, before we dive into, like safety and all of this new information? Yeah, awesome. Okay, cool. So I read this whole story. And I found it absolutely intriguing. And something that I thought was really interesting about the story is how it came to be that you even started investigating this seems like there was a lot of people talking about it, there was certain lab testing companies that were going to the regulators in the state and saying, Hey, we have an issue here. And there wasn't a lot of listening happening. Would you mind kind of walking us through the beginning parts of what led up to this article?

Alex Helperin  2:17  
Sure. So um, a couple years ago, some I guess we'll call them whistleblower Lapps, wrote to the the cannabis regulator in California, the Department of Cannabis Control, and said that they were finding all these products that had more THC in them, that didn't have as much THC in them as was on the way. And this is sort of a widely acknowledged problem of AB shopping, because stronger products are more appealing to some consumers. Even though a lot of comments sewers, say, you know, it's not really about THC, it's about the terpenes or whatnot. But clearly, having more potent products is a good way to move more products. And so in California, and quite a few other states, brands can essentially shop for cannabis injury, choose a lab to run its compliance tests work. And if they don't like the results, they can choose another app to give their business to. So as a result, there was a lot of labs allegedly sort of boosting the THC of of their products to keep their customers happy. And this upset some of the labs that claimed they were doing it right and losing business because they were being honest. And they they complain, they did their own testing and they sent the results to the DCC and the DCC didn't do anything. And this annoyed them. And then they followed up by saying, Hey, we also found these pesticides that California doesn't allow in the, in these products, and there was a correlation between the labs that were dishonest on the potency and offering, sort of scrubbing the pesticide. So So I wrote about two years ago, I wrote a story where I bought some some pre rolls, and had them tested at a couple of labs at two different labs to try and get a fair reading. And all seven of the pre rolls had less THC than their label set and some were about 20% inflated. One was about 500% inflated it said it had about 55% but it actually got about

Dr. Riley Kirk  4:57  
55% was recorded. And that CoA.

Alex Helperin  5:01  
I mean, that's pretty common. And as people were noting at the time, I mean, that really sort of, especially for like a joint or a one, like, that doesn't seem really physically possible. But so it was happening. And so I wrote a story with with with my tests, and it got a fair amount of attention. And with just some some of the brands being sued by customers claiming, and this, I didn't even got a mention on the call bear that they weren't getting as high as they had paid to get. And so I was also interested in the pesticide issue. But, um, but it was, it was more complicated, because among other things, you know, THC inflation isn't really a health hazard. It's a sort of a marketing rights,

Dr. Riley Kirk  5:59  
it's false advertising, but it's not gonna like, you know, hurt you to the extent that some illegal carcinogen is like we're talking about with pesticides. Yeah.

Alex Helperin  6:09  
And to the extent that and also just, it seemed like the kind of thing where if it was happening, it needed a bigger audience than then my newsletter. Yeah. And I was talking to the LA Times about the different story idea I live in, in Long Beach so not too far away. And at the same time, one of their their great reporters, Paige St. John had covered some of the the illegal farms that were sprouting up and sort of taking over sort of vast rural areas of the state, very remote areas. One, one of them being Siskiyou County, which is on the Oregon border, okay. And she had in her reporting, she had encountered various pesticides as well that in on these illegal farms, but which the product nonetheless seemed to be getting inverted into the legal supply chain, and should so the reporter introduced us and we all started talking and we that's sort of how the story came together. Paige did did a separate story on some of the some of the illegal pesticides that she found reporting up north as well. Okay,

Dr. Riley Kirk  7:33  
so for this LA Times weed week report, how many samples were you looking at? And was it all flower was some of it concentrates? Were you looking at any edibles, like what types of products were testing hot for these pesticides, and then we'll get into like, what these actual pesticides were? Sure.

Alex Helperin  7:53  
So we were mainly testing vapes, okay. And the reason for that was that it became clear that vapes especially just sort of cheap, the least expensive vapes are made from sort of the, the leftover material, they were sort of the West desirable plant matter. And there are just all sorts of reasons why. And we later found out that there are companies that are that offered to buy dirty pesticides, if they think they can Dirty, dirty biomass they caught if they think they can extract the distillate oil, and dilute it to a degree that they can pass the California regulations.

Dr. Riley Kirk  8:46  
That was a crazy part of the article is just reading that there's literal literal emails that are like tight, or having the subject line like heavy metal and pesticide trim biomass, like we're open to buying it because we're going to essentially just make it into distillate like you're saying, and put into these vape carts. And, you know, hopefully, these people are thinking that their distillation process or whatever it is, is going to remediate it and remove it, but it's clearly not. And something that's also talked about is how these distillate products that they're making are essentially concentrating the actual pesticides, it's not really diluting them out because when you're creating a distillate or you're creating one of these cartridges, you're concentrating those cannabinoids in that biomass and the extract altogether. So people are actually being exposed to more of these pesticides in these vape carts, which seems to be the biggest issue for safety concerns. Yeah, so that's very, very concerning. And I think we'll also talk about some brands as well because you were reporting on that. So did you test any actual flour or was it all distillate and vape cards?

Alex Helperin  9:54  
There might have been one or two flour and They're I think the after six years, California, it took six years for California to issue its first cannabis, pesticide recall. And that was for a flower product. But we were overwhelmingly testing vapes. There may have been one or two.

Dr. Riley Kirk  10:18  
Okay, so let's dive into what you found. Because it is pretty insane. The level that we're seeing here, let's talk about the pesticides that are tested for and the cannabis market in California, but also the ones that aren't even tested for and maybe more common in tobacco testing, rather than cannabis testing. And like, and what are the health concerns? Like what are people like really worried about here, because, you know, pesticides in general are meant to keep pests away. And they're often acting as like a neurotoxin to these pests. And the reason why drugs and so many substances work on us is because we're essentially giant pests, so they don't kill us. But they might make us feel weird in a different way. But if a substance is meant to kill something, it's definitely not going to be good for us, if we're ingesting it. And honestly, any level for a lot of these compounds,

Alex Helperin  11:13  
right? I mean, pesticides is a is a huge, huge sort of umbrella category. But but it generally captures the idea of chemicals that are designed to kill or neutralize pests, so living things, so that in general, that's not the kind of thing you want in your body. But so we found several different had a, California, of all I mean, there, there are many reasons to believe that there are similar problems in in other states. But one thing California has is probably among the most rigorous tests decide pesticide testing requirements. So it requires that 66 Pesticides be tested for an up those about a third you can't have any of any The rest are theirs open. And then, so we found we found products that contained more than they were allowed of the the the limited pesticides, we found ones that contained the banned pesticides. Then we also found products that California doesn't test cannabis for, but which are being used on, which apparently are being used on on cannabis products. So one of those was pyometra zine, which I'm told, can help kill aphids, which is a major pest right now. But it's a it's a chemical that's very limited in the US and banned in several European countries and Canada, I believe. And I, I don't want to get it wrong. But I believe it's a hormonal disrupter of certain types of errors. Like something you don't want to mess

Dr. Riley Kirk  13:23  
with. Yeah, I was reading about it. And it's an endocrine disruptor exactly what you're talking about. And it also has been shown to cause pretty severe liver damage as well when your body is processing this compound. So I mean, that's, yeah, I mean, that's very concerning. There's other compounds as well that have shown to be somehow involved in either like sperm counts or fertility. In general, there's multiple of these pesticides that seem to affect fertility, which is very concerned. I think that's one of the most concerning things out of all of this data.

Alex Helperin  13:54  
No, absolutely. And then we found other pesticides that are banned in this country, but are apparently making it into some of the illegal growths and these pesticides come from places like China and parts of Eastern Europe, where they're not necessarily as vigilant about consumer safety, as we sometimes are in in this country. So so we found all different things. And to be clear that the results we didn't have the budget or time or resources to test everything, it doesn't account for the whole market. But what it does suggest is that it's really impossible to pick up a vape and be sure that it's clean. Like there's no way to tell because if the if the labs are not reporting accurate data for their their customers Then there's really no sort of credible place to plant your confidence in the safety of a product.

Dr. Riley Kirk  15:11  
Right, which is so concerning, because I mean, I always think of specifically medical patients, right? Like we rely on this medicine to be tested. And that's part of what makes this medicine so expensive to is like all of these lab costs that go into testing every part of the process. And if we can't trust the lab reports anymore, I mean, really, what are we supposed to do? And I think another thing that is a bit concerning is, I think it kind of raises this question of what else are we not testing for that could potentially you know, be in these products, because it's really not easy to identify molecules that you don't know are in a product, because you need to essentially, blindly look at it and start identifying all of these different compounds. And we know cannabis is a natural product, it has hundreds of different molecules, and now we're looking for ones that don't belong there, that can get really, really difficult. And, you know, we kind of expect our regulatory agencies to be doing the due diligence to be looking into these pesticides and looking into these other things. But um, it sounds like the regulations in California haven't been updated in a really long time. And I'm guessing this might be the case for other states as well. Can you speak on that at all?

Alex Helperin  16:25  
Sure. So a couple different things. So California has an updated the 66 chemicals that need to be tested for since 2018. And that just doesn't reflect the reality of a fast moving and fast changing market that is responding to whatever is getting in the way of its crops in real time and, and trying things constantly. So. So that's one question. The The other question is whether the whether the state has the capacity to test for the these compounds, as well. After the story came out the governor's office, the state didn't respond to our questions. And in large part, after the story came out, the governor's office said it had complete confidence in the agency. But it still hasn't. The agency hasn't done anything. Since the story came out. Apparently, we hear that more recalls may may be coming. But but that's unclear.

Dr. Riley Kirk  17:41  
Hmm, that is pretty surprising. I wonder if any of the any state with like a legal market is going to talk about it, because it definitely doesn't only affect California, I think California's just kind of the staple child that we use for cannabis a lot of the time, especially in these evolving markets. But there's who's to say that other states don't have the same problem going on? I think that's what a lot of people wanted to know, is like, are other states going to start testing for this? Are other independent investigators or labs gonna start looking into this? And that's something I am curious about, too. Yeah,

Alex Helperin  18:15  
I mean, we'll see, there are states that have been more aggressive than California in issuing very sweeping recalls. That disrupted the market disrupted people's ability to find product at all, but they weren't confident in in a lab or something like that. And they they stepped in and attracted litigation. And, you know, it really invites issues to when you disrupt the market. But other states have been more willing to do it than then California. And

Dr. Riley Kirk  18:52  
you mentioned that kind of this story exemplifies that we can't necessarily go just based on a COA, whether something's absolutely safe or not. Can we speak on that anymore? Because I think this might be the question I got the most when I asked the Internet, what they want to hear about with this story, and a lot of people are just saying, How do I make sure that the cannabis that I'm purchasing is safe, and it's clean? And it's not used with pesticides? Do you have any advice for people who want to make sure they're getting quality cannabis and trying to be as transparent as possible?

Alex Helperin  19:26  
Yeah, I mean, I'm not sure right now in California that you can, which sort of undermines the whole of a major pillar of the case for the legal market. That said, I, you know, I don't want to cast aspersions too widely. But certainly the the impression is that vapes are are the more the most problematic of the categories, but there may be problems with others as well. Another issue is that When you when you in, it's really unknown what a lot of these chemicals do when you combust and inhale, they haven't been studied. So the degree to which we'll know the dangers of them, it's usually in the context of the agricultural workers who are spraying this stuff. And you know, in really close contact to it, or, or perhaps in the context of eating it, if it's if it's on food, but in those cases, it goes through the digestive system and is filtered, as my understanding is filtered at least some degree by by the liver. Whereas if you ignite or heat something, and suck on it, it goes straight into your lungs and into your buds.

Dr. Riley Kirk  20:49  
And it might be transformed during the heating process into a fully different molecule we don't even know we don't usually study things as far as like when they're combusted. If they're the same molecules or not, I do think that this article, you know, I'm like a huge proponent for home grow. And I know that everybody can't grow their own weed. But I do think it is a big advocacy piece for home grow. Because if you are seriously immunocompromised, either yourself growing or somebody that you're close with, that's growing cannabis, and that you can really ensure that they're putting quality material in and nothing, you know, sketchy, I think that's great. And also just like looking for brands that are really proud of their product, that tell their story that talk about you know, their nutrients that go into their plants, and want to advertise that and show people that maybe they're organic farmers, and they're trying to show people that they're organic farmers, I think that's another good way to look for quality cannabis, rather than looking at a, you know, distillate cart that you know, absolutely nothing about, other than it contains a lot of THC. But of course, these are different price points, too. And not everyone has all these different products accessible to them. So, you know, unfortunately, I hope that we can just regulate it to the point that we don't have these sketchy pesticides, and are illegal products. I also think this leads to the question of why are people doing this? Is there really that much of a need for these potent pesticides that we have to use these for cannabis, I find this a little surprising. But I know that a lot of cultivators are under a lot of screw and tea, and we're trying to grow these massive amounts of cannabis in these small spaces. And we're getting more and more passed, you know, what part in the supply chain? Where is this happening? I don't want to use the term who's at fault. But that's what a lot of people are asking essentially is like, how is this happening? And why are people using these these pesticides at these levels, these illegal pesticides at these levels and a medicinal plant crop? So

Alex Helperin  22:51  
So there are a couple of things. I mean, there's a huge demand right now for vapes there. They're just very, very popular. So that's part of it.

Another part is that the market is under a lot of pressure a lot of businesses have gone under, there are a variety of blights that they're encountering, you have to remember cannabis is an agricultural crop, it is susceptible to the elements and it sort of mass scale growing is a pretty new thing. And it's hard to do. And the bigger your farm is the the more it costs, and the harder it is to to get it right. And not everybody in in the industry is is willing to do that. And as a result, it's very difficult to to really be confident in the safety of abroad. What

Dr. Riley Kirk  23:49  
do you think after this story after this is leaked? You know, what do you think the political ramifications are going to be in our industry because, you know, it is a wellness industry. It's a medicinal plant industry. And it's something that we really talk about in the context as medicine and this is really unacceptable in this industry. So what do you think's going to happen after this that's going to change to try to make sure that this isn't going to continue happening? Or do you think that they're going to respond at all? Or what do you think and what's the vibe?

Alex Helperin  24:21  
So there's a bill in the California legislature right now, that would crack down a bit among other things, it would require a secret shopper program for state regulators to to buy products and custom. That bill there was a hearing on it that this morning and it seemed to have quite a bit of support. So so we might might see a bill like that go through. And there's some other provisions as well that the DCC hasn't really said anything and the governor says it has it Is his full confidence suggest that maybe they're not interested in responding or maybe they're preparing like a big recall there, there are rumors that more recalls are are coming. And they're really going to step that up. They've been issuing a lot of recalls recently for a mold called Aspergillus, which I may or may not be pronouncing correctly. But the the problem is, at least the problem we talked about as pesticides. And the reason they're not they, they there haven't been as many pesticide recalls, as I understand it, is that they're not able to test for those products, at least fairly recently, they weren't able to test for a lot of them. So as as a result, we'll see. But but for now that we'll see if the bill passes, we'll see if the DCC does anything, there have been one high profile CEO has launched his own testing campaign and vertiv described it as a quick and dirty effort at the beginning of a larger campaign to ensure customer safety. You know, we'll we'll see how far that goes.

Dr. Riley Kirk  26:18  
I was gonna ask you about this, and I didn't know how comfortable you felt talking about it, but you're just talking about it, so we can talk about it. Um, yeah, so I saw something about this, too, that essentially, a CEO at a different cannabis company was doing individual lab testing on the products that said were failed in this article. And they were finding that it didn't fail for some things. But to my knowledge, after reading what they had to say they weren't testing for the illegal ones found overseas, I don't believe so. So I think it's still kind of exactly how it was because they didn't really test for the same things. But they did test negative for some of the California tested pesticides, which is great. But you have to test for all of them in order to, you know, reassure that you're actually corroborating what you're saying. Right.

Alex Helperin  27:08  
So the only test such tests that I'm aware of was conducted by Eliot Lewis, who's the CEO of the retailer, Academy, catalyst, cannabis. And they tested it a bunch of brands, some of which we tested it for us over which we didn't test for. And he found that they were all clean. And they were all tested at at one lab. And they only tested for the things California tested for. So you know, it took a while for our story to come out. It's possible that some of the companies made cleaned up their act a little bit if so great. It's possible they missed it in that it's possible. They missed it in the testing. But they also don't even claim to have tested for some of the other compounds, such as prime Atrazine, which is California doesn't test for and which is not. And which is allowed in this country under certain circumstances. So

Dr. Riley Kirk  28:11  
would you feel comfortable discussing a few brands that may be tested really, really bad during when you're testing these products, and then a few brands that tested great, like they didn't have any of these pesticides, just in case people are living in California, even if you don't want to discuss the bad just discussing a few good brands that just based on this limited study just which ones were safe as far as pesticides go?

Alex Helperin  28:37  
I don't want to necessarily test the good ones, because we didn't test that many, like the majority of the 40, about 40 products we tested, came up with something even if it was just an avowed chemical both below the California limit. So I don't want to necessarily endorse any I guess I would say read read the story. Various folks have sort of tried to question the the findings on on social media, and I don't really have any comment on on their comments. Other than that, we We stand by our reporter.

Dr. Riley Kirk  29:18  
Yeah, it's pretty well outlined in the story and I'll put that as I mentioned in the show notes and very available for anyone who wants to read it, but there are some pretty big brands in California. So if you are somebody who enjoys vape cards, I would just look into the story and look at at least the ones that tested very, very, very negative because you might want to avoid those. And you know also be asking questions when you go to a dispensary about where the flower comes from or about the company in general. Or I should say about the you know concentrates the distillates whatever it is, you know ask questions about it. It's okay to be a little annoying at at a dispensary. I definitely am every single day Time. But yeah, unfortunately, like this isn't something that's going to be on a COA. Because if something did test negative for, or I should say if something did test positive for pesticides on a COA, it wouldn't be in that legal dispensary, or at least hopefully it would be cold before that point. So all of these that we're kind of talking about here aren't reported accurately or they're just not tested for on that CoA. Unfortunately. Okay, do you mind if we do a little bit of rapid fire? Because I asked Instagram. Okay, I asked Instagram, just a few questions of what they wanted to know. And I got like, over 100 responses, we're not going to ask all of them, but we're gonna ask a few to you. Okay, how do these levels that are found in these cartridges? How do these compared to the levels of something like pesticides that we're exposed to in the produce aisle at the grocery store doing?

Alex Helperin  30:59  
I'd say the main the main differences are the products were exposed to in in the grocery store are known to the EPA. And essentially, the science on the dangerous bait pose is, is well known, or at least we know what's not known about it. And the other thing is that we're eating the products, as opposed to inhaling them, which seems to be a more direct route on to the bloodstream.

Dr. Riley Kirk  31:32  
That's a great point.

Alex Helperin  31:34  
So essentially, we don't know everything about the chemicals we're finding in the bot, and we are breathing it into our lungs as opposed to eating.

Dr. Riley Kirk  31:44  
All right. Another question, what are the signs and symptoms if you were exposed to these pesticides? Is there something we should be looking for and ourselves or community that we can say, Okay, if you have XYZ, you know, you might be exposed to something in your cannabis.

Alex Helperin  32:01  
Um, I don't know if it's the same for all of them. In one case, there's a former agricultural worker who's suing pretty high profile brands, claiming that working with these pesticides that they made them spray made them dizzy and nauseous and stuff like that. There are with some of the illegal pesticides. There have been signs of state workers and for law enforcement and other kinds of enforcement agents being advised to wear hazmat gear and stuff like that if in case they're exposed to these things in in facilities.

Dr. Riley Kirk  32:44  
Oh, that's so nasty. And I was doing a little bit of research on this too. I was reading that some short term things to be looking for is like nausea, disorientation and confusion. Some longer term issues could be neurological damage. As we mentioned, a lot of these pesticides work on the brains of insects. So it would be the similar target in our own body. Endocrine disruptors, which we mentioned, which have implications in reproductive health, loss of appetite, weakness, heart issues. And then for med patients, specifically, specifically, those who are using for epilepsy, Parkinson's and other neurological disorders. I mean, I think this is the most concerning for that population of people just because, you know, your brains already a little more sensitive. And if you have a toxin essentially on your brain, it can be really, really damaging. Okay, let's keep going. Um, is there any type of regulation do brands have to tell us what pesticides and how much they use in their products is that regulated at all that transparency, so

Alex Helperin  33:51  
that the levels are set, the levels for some tests for 66 Pesticides are set by the state of those 20 can't be detected at all, and the remaining 45 or so have a limit roughly akin to what is allowed in cigarettes, which hasn't been tested, because it was decided that cigarettes are dangerous enough that we don't really need to test all the chemicals that that go into

Dr. Riley Kirk  34:20  
that. Oh, my God.

Alex Helperin  34:22  
I think it's probably also worth mentioning that a couple not five years ago, right before the pandemic, there was a crisis where sort of a thinning agent of some kind that's generally been agreed to be known as vitamin E acetate was found in some unlicensed products and this and some people who just had a few hits, ended up very sick in the hospital or even dead. And this This is a different situation where we don't we're not aware of any case. says where something like that has happened because of pesticides. It's more like cigarettes, where it's one of the most, it's very dangerous. But the effects are, are caused by chronic are likely caused by chronic use over overuse. Okay, and

Dr. Riley Kirk  35:17  
so I guess that's positive if you if you only have, you know, one of these cartridges in your lifetime, that's better than repeat, repeat use, but kind of like what we're talking about, if you do have a one gram cart, and you're heading that, you know, all the time you kind of are getting pretty heavy repeat use from even just one cartridge. I mean, I don't know what's like medically relevant, but that seems still scary to me. And you mentioned licensed versus unlicensed cannabis businesses. Do we think that this pesticide issue is mostly happening within the licensed or unlicensed arm of the cannabis industry in California ship for

Alex Helperin  35:58  
the story, we only tested products that we bought in licensed dispensaries, because those are the ones that are supposed to be clean. That said, I mean, there's plenty of reason to believe that the borders between the the licensed and unlicensed market is, is a thin membrane or a holy membrane. The exact word I'm thinking of is escaping me. But those, you know, there are products that start out in the illegal market and make it into the legal legal market and then get diverted back out. And there's also a, I would say, a pretty strong possibility that some products that are testing that are too dirty, are being diverted by companies to the illegal market. So there's a good chance that illegal products are as dirty, if not dirty, or there may be some that aren't. But but there's a good chance that illegal products are dirtier. We just didn't do those tests.

Dr. Riley Kirk  37:08  
Yeah, that's, that's fair enough. And I agree with there's probably a lot of overlap, or maybe a bit more than most people think between the licensed and unlicensed cannabis industry, at least in some parts of the US. I really liked this question, which was, how aware Do you think that the brands were that there were pesticides in their products? And I think this is all speculation, but kind of what we're talking about with supply chain issues, you know, maybe people these reputable brands were buying products that they thought were reputable, but weren't. Do you have any insight on on that question?

Alex Helperin  37:49  
So, so focusing on vapes, I mean, it's a very murky market. And the brands the reputable brands that are you know, they're they have an interest in buying less expensive, cheaper product, less expensive product, and dirty product sells for less so but they they have an interest in maybe not knowing why their product is why their oil seems to be so much less expensive than somebody else's oil. And we also found that there, there are manufacturers who take oil, and you know, they'll they'll receive a vat of oil, and then the EU will parse it out into 1000s of vapes, which are from competing brands. So I don't think in a lot of cases, the brands probably don't have too much insight, and they don't really benefit from asking hard questions. Yeah,

Dr. Riley Kirk  38:56  
that's, that's a good answer. So I think that's probably all I'll ask from these Instagram questions. I think those were some really good ones. As we're wrapping up. First, I want to say thank you for doing your investigative journalism. I know it's not easy to get the hate for kind of speaking the truth on some things. But I think this needs to be brought up as our industry continues to evolve and mature just making sure that we are really we do have a medicinal product we do have a wellness product and that we're keeping each other in line and making sure we're providing the highest quality medicine to people so wanting to thank you for that right off the bat and give you kind of the floor if you want to talk about anything that you thought was surprising well unveiling this this article or any other similar articles in cannabis that you want listeners to be aware of, that you've also worked on in the past.

Alex Helperin  39:53  
Oh, well, I mean, I guess I'll just say thanks so much for for having me and and have taken an interest in the subject. And, you know, if your readers are involved in the cannabis industry and something's on their mind, they're, they're always welcome to reach out to me. You can email me at Alex at weed week.com Or there, and if that is not secure enough, maybe send me a DM on LinkedIn and I can give you a more secure way to way to reach me. i So thanks. Thanks so much. And yeah, I mean, the feedback, there's been a lot of it's definitely made some noise. But what to do about it is is sort of unclear, you know, you say that the industry needs to take an interest in in wellness and the, you know, within the industry that the idea that cannabis is medicine, or a wellness product, or what have you, is sort of taken for granted. But the a lot of companies don't necessarily always weave up to that. And there have been, for instance, there been a couple into at least two incidents of workers dying on the job from apparently inhaling one sort of a well known diseases called

Dr. Riley Kirk  41:22  
just the fine train particles that are involved in cannabis processing. Like if you inhale a lot of that it clogs up your airways and it can be really dangerous. So

Alex Helperin  41:31  
um, just because the the industry believes in the benefits of its products, that doesn't mean that that everybody is acting in a responsible manner service so be careful. Yeah,

Dr. Riley Kirk  41:46  
I think that's a good way to go out and also if you do live in a state with a med or adult use program, you know, make sure your products are getting tested anyway because they these regulations do change state to state it is all public. Definitely look into at the very least what is required for your cannabis to be tested for especially if you are a medical patient. It's something to definitely look into make sure you're getting the highest quality cannabis possible. But thank you again so much, Alex for taking the time to be on and I will again attached the link to the article in the show notes of this episode. And we'll just continue the conversation on Instagram and Patreon and wherever else that we connect on the internet. So mad love everyone and we will see you again in a couple of weeks.