Why Descheduling Beats Rescheduling For Patients’ Rights with Jason Greninger

The headlines make rescheduling sound like progress, but what if shifting cannabis to Schedule III quietly shuts dispensaries and makes patients criminals again? We dig into the science and the policy with guest Jason Grenninger, a certified surgical technologist and plant researcher, to show why descheduling is the only move that protects access, advances research, and respects how people actually use this medicine.

We start with clarity on RSO and whole‑plant extracts: why their safety profile differs from single‑molecule drugs and how the entourage effect emerges when cannabinoids, terpenes, and other compounds work together. Jason contrasts that with pharma‑grade isolates and synthetics, explaining why “pure molecules in chalk” fit acute care but can misfire for chronic conditions. From lab panels comparing different concentrates across multiple cancer cell lines to the practical reality that some strains help certain cancers while others don’t, we stress a data‑first approach that evolves with patient outcomes rather than shutting them down.

Then we pull back the policy curtain. Schedule III isn’t a softer landing; it’s a tightly controlled gate that requires prescriptions and pharmacies, turning current adult‑use and many medical frameworks into legal dead ends. We unpack how that would ripple through states, criminalize possession without a script, and erase years of advocacy that brought patients out of the shadows. Instead, descheduling aligns with the endocannabinoid system we all carry, opens the door for real clinical research on whole‑plant products, and keeps quality, age limits, and labeling intact without forcing cannabis into a box built for pills only.

If you care about patient rights, honest science, and keeping people out of handcuffs, this is your moment. Tap the links in our show notes to sign the petition, message national leaders through the official portal, and share your story in a few sentences. Subscribe, leave a review to boost the signal, and pass this episode to someone who thinks Schedule III is “good enough.” Let’s make descheduling the standard we demand. https://243363614.hs-sites-na2.com/deschedule-cannabis-petition-compassion-center-cpr

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Meet Jason And Set The Stakes

SPEAKER_00 0:12

Well, hello, and welcome to the Healthy Living Podcast. I'm your host, Joe Grumbine, and today I've got a very special guest. His name is Jason Grenninger, and this guy's got a wealth of credentials, but um certified surgical technologist, a medical profession in the operating room for 36 years. He's a plant alchemist, as many of us are. And um he was able to uh learn about RSO. So for those of you listeners know anything about cannabis medicine, RSO is a full spectrum whole plant extract that uh many of us use to help a lot of people doing a lot of things. Um and you know, this guy has seen all sorts of problems, has had um a battle with non-Hodgkins leukemia, um metastasize, all the bad things, and um he's been working through it. But now he's working on a project, and this is something near and dear to my heart. Anybody who knows me, I've been a cannabis advocate and activist for almost 40 years, and uh been locked up and and and helped other people, and it sometimes it feels like lifetimes ago, but it never left. Um, I'm not in the trenches the way I was, but uh my heart's still there. And it's with a group called Coalition for Patients' Rights. And this is something that I I could not agree with more, you know. Um, my with the Human Solution International, our motto was no one should go to jail for a plant. And beyond that, and it was really that simple. Like people go, Well, what about the coca plant? What about the other plant? There's no plant that should get any person locked up. You know, you can abuse a lot of things, but that doesn't make the plant, you know, a criminal act. And cannabis, especially, um, it never killed a single person to date. Um, that that's that can be directly attributed and correlated to the cannabis plant. You know, it's helped a lot of people. Frankly, it doesn't necessarily help everybody the way they want to be helped, but neither does anything. And I think it's important for us to be realistic about this. But most importantly, we have laws on the book that say cannabis is one of the most dangerous substances known to man, is highly likely to be abused, and is highly addictive. And these are all things that are just not true. And um I believe and Jason believes that we should just repeal these laws, not doing the things that are happening right now, like talking about uh rescheduling and making something a schedule three drug, is not gonna be helpful. So, Jason, without me commandeering this conversation, I sure want to hear what you have to say. Welcome to the show. It's great to have you here.

SPEAKER_02 3:17

I appreciate you very much, and thanks for having me. Um yeah, it's a big deal now with the D-schedule because it's uh people don't necessarily realize what that all is going to entail. And and just for the fact that pharma wants to make some products for themselves to put into the system through providers and uh and access through pharmacy, well, they can do that under any schedule, including no schedule. Uh, for example, uh willow tree bark is how you get aspirin. So um if you grow, you can grow your willow trees and you can have willow tree bark, but once you start making a product and consenting it to people, well now you have to have licensing and product. And so the system's already in place to handle a plant and for us to have a plant. And and the problem is schedule three, if they do that, it's actually a recriminalization. Every adult use and dispensary will be closed.

SPEAKER_00 4:15

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 4:16

I know it's painful uh to hear, and I didn't want to believe it at first, but after you dive into it a little bit, every statute that's written in every state that has managed to create a use around Schedule One, those laws are for Schedule One, not Schedule Three. So as soon as it goes to Schedule III, all of those laws and statutes are worth nothing. They're valueless. There's no substance to that. And they're putting cannabis into the schedule three box. They are not changing the box that is schedule three. And you can only get a schedule three through a license provider, through a current prescription, and through a pharmacy, or it is illegal and you are a criminal.

SPEAKER_00 4:57

So why don't you go here of a schedule three drug? So we can we can really put side by side what they're trying to the box they're trying to put cannabis into.

SPEAKER_02 5:11

Yeah. For example, things with codeine or some various other things. I think there's I think uh all of those schedule three items are is called control. It schedule is CSA stands for controlled substances. It's a control level three. So it's a control and criminalization at level three. Right. So anyone in that has it on them without a current prescription is a criminal now. Anyone who passes it to someone else is a criminal now. And those those are a little bit of a problem we're finding, you know, trying to look at the the patient data we've looked at for all these years. Um because uh Coalition for Patient Rights is also part of uh Compassion Center, and they're the ones that have uh put together a petition that we're putting forth. Uh, I did put the link in your chat there.

SPEAKER_00 6:01

Yeah, and we're gonna put that in the show notes. The the podcast itself is uh is an audio file, but we have show notes that have the whole thing, so we're gonna put that in there.

SPEAKER_02 6:10

Excellent. And the and the the petition itself is nice, but it doesn't have that much legally but legal background. Uh, we'd love you to sign it. But what's really on that petition that's important is there's access links to Pamela Bondi, our attorney general. There's access link to Robert F. Kennedy, our secretary, uh human services, health and human services, and to the president, our representatives, our senators. If you contact them, you're gonna make a lot more difference than signing a petition that doesn't have a lot of legal value to it. Uh because unless it's a registered petition within each state and each process and it's it's uh specifically.

SPEAKER_00 6:46

Right, we're not we're not trying to create legislation, we're trying to uncreate some legislation exactly through through awareness and and what's going on here.

SPEAKER_02 6:57

And and the thing we need to tell you know, Pamela Bondi is we're gonna recriminalize all of these people. We also have a generation of people now that have been introduced and happy with adult use and social use, and uh let's face it, they never had to uh allegedly uh manage it in an illegal market. And they're at risk. Our workforce is at risk, our youth is at risk by criminalizing cannabis again, uh, which is one of the other things.

Why Schedule III Triggers Recriminalization

SPEAKER_00 7:27

I think it would it would really have a huge effect that's not really expected. You know, what you just pointed out is important, you know, we came from a generation where everything was illegal, and you know, I mean, I I was I was allegedly growing cannabis out in the woods, you know, before we had our medical laws. So I mean, everything was illegal, and you didn't, you know, you had to know somebody who knew somebody before I'd even talk to you, you know. I mean, it was, you know, we were very careful, and nowadays nobody thinks twice about anything. And and you know, you try to explain that there's people still locked up in prison today, and and people are still getting put in prison today. Um, not so many as used to be, but there's still plenty. And I spent almost 20 years, you know, working with with inmates, uh, cannabis inmates, and helping someone get out and and at least giving them, you know, some refuge. And and uh you talk about that today, and people look at you like you're crazy, like they just don't even accept that. I could go to the store, you drive down any freeway and you see billboards with giant pot leaves on them, and it it makes you feel like it's just no big deal.

unknown 8:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:53

Exactly. And and and what's interesting is that I'm in the in Las Vegas here, where I'm at Nevada, Las Vegas, they've gone into a couple dispensaries to talk to some managers and say, hey, you know, you you realize this is gonna close if schedule three happens. Yeah, they don't, and they're and they're like, oh no, no. Well, that's the argument I get. Oh, we're uh we can operate under schedule one, we can definitely operate under schedule three, right? And they don't realize that that is not the case at all. Uh schedule three is a very specific control that is extraordinarily well established in its system. Schedule one is a you can't touch it, go away empty box. Schedule three has got tons of structure and everything built around it, and and they're not changing those things.

SPEAKER_00 9:36

Well, not only that, the pharma companies make billions of dollars working within that schedule. So there's there are gigantic corporation entities that know their way through all the rigor moral, and and if anybody's gonna uh exist, like we talked the other day, and you were mentioning, you know, uh what is it, epid epidielex or or or um epidelic, yeah. Yeah, one of there's a handful of of Marinol and and or is I think it's generic now, they've got some different names for it. But I mean, at the end of the day, there's a handful of cannabis-based prescription drugs that have gone through that system, but literally a handful. And not anything that you can drink or smoke, or or you know, um, there's I think one of them's uh uh an oil, an infused oil, and one of them's a pill, and that's it. Like that's all there is, and that's not what cannabis users are familiar with or would accept, or you know, it's just it it would turn everything completely upside down.

SPEAKER_02 10:52

Well, I've been you know, since I've been in this, I'm sort of on the medical side, so doing research because to me it's all about the data, you know. I can make whatever I think I can make, but until the data actually tells me something, I have it done squat. I agree, and we're all just jerking off until we have the data, you know. Oh, it works. Yeah, yeah. What's your data? What's your mechanism of action? Dive into it, and once you find that, then dive in, find your mechanism of action and get the real science done, which is what we're up to. But the problem with this uh is uh is it's natural. Natural remedies have a different feel, different energy to them. Pharmaceutic pharmaceutical products are made very specific because they have to know every single molecule that's there, and there can be no molecule that's there that they don't know about. And so almost every medicine, and I can go to the anesthesia cart and look at any medicine in there and say, well, they're this, pull this up, and most of it is up at most to like five percent of something, you know, maybe maybe one percent or five milligrams or ten milligrams. So it's a pure molecule in chalk. Every bit of it is pure molecules in chalk, so they know exactly what they're those are the rules they established to work within that zone. And and as a surgical tech and operating room for 36 years, I appreciate those medicines. You need to know that level of medicine you're dealing with when you're putting someone unconscious and chopping their bones up and know exactly what that CC is there and what's not there. It's very harsh to our bodies, yes, it's hard on our bodies. The bodies don't like pure molecules like that, right? And we all know that from experiencing medicine. And I got a question: how many people do you know that have ever been on the F Pedelex or Drobenol or uh Marinol and switched and went to say, I want plant, and and had better relief just from going to natural?

Pharma Paths Vs Whole-Plant Medicine

SPEAKER_00 13:32

I think I've known only a couple of people that ever had those prescriptions. And the only reason why they had those prescriptions is they were terrified of being arrested. And the second they had an opportunity to get the whole plant, they took it.

SPEAKER_02 13:50

Yes, because it it works so much better. Yeah, and it's it's more efficacious to us. Our buy, I mean, food is food is medicine. That's that's how we live by eating medicine and food and moving forward. And uh yeah. And the thing is is is if they do deschedule the way it's listed now, they're talking about the the schedule three. When they introduced it, they're talking about putting the plant in schedule three, not the derivatives that pharma makes from it, but the plant back in there again, which is an abuse of the system in the first place on a plant, because that's not how it was built. Pharmacies don't grow plants, yeah. Exactly. And that's the other huge thing because it's pharma. If they wanted to use the plant and take out extract single molecules, it's a lot of work.

SPEAKER_00 14:37

Right.

SPEAKER_02 14:37

Um, they're actually making cannabinoids right now with bacteria. Yeah, and you just they're actually using E. coli bacteria, yeah, which is the bacteria that if you get in contact with, you end up getting diarrhea because someone, you know, it's it's a little exposure, and you get diarrhea if you get access to that. That is the actual bacteria they're using to create cannabinoids in vats. And the problem with those are is if they work great, fine, but they don't. Right, they are a mirror image of the molecule, it's not nature's kitchen. You can't repeat nature's kitchen. When you start playing with it, you'll get the molecule, you get the right amount of atoms, but they're not in the same exact shape or configuration or even a mirror. So when it hits our receptors, it's a key. Right. And the key opens the receptor differently, it doesn't quite work. Have you heard of people having psychotic episodes from synthetic THC in the past? What happens is that synthetic THC, because the key is different, goes into that receptor, and instead of just being an agonist of 70% or 60%, it opens that door 100% locks it open.

SPEAKER_01 15:44

Right.

SPEAKER_02 15:45

It's never supposed to work like that. That's a pure molecule that's not right that's messing with us. And that's the type of things that are already showing not to be very efficacious with what has already been done pharmaceutically with cannabis.

SPEAKER_00 15:59

Well, I think what people don't realize about plant medicines in general is most plants that are used medicinally have numbers of compounds, and they they could be, you know, all different types of of compounds, from aromatics to um, I mean, uh alkaloids to, I mean, there's so many different types of active ingredients. But what generally happens with a plant is they've got a mixture of these ingredients, and some of them offset the negative effects of the others in such a way that you get an overall positive benefit and very little overall negative benefit. And when you start concentrating things to, you know, more of one and and eliminating or less of another, all of a sudden you get, you know, and they talk about you know the the um entourage effect and all of that. Well, that's a real thing. The only problem is we don't understand all the parts. There's too many parts that we don't know about, and we don't know what they do, and and and in the configuration they're in with concentrations that they're in with all these different things, it's it's as much of an art as it is a science, and that's where the pharma companies can't can't can't be involved.

SPEAKER_02 17:24

No, and for example, of what you're just saying, I don't know if you can see this that well. You can see all that with bars.

SPEAKER_00 17:30

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:31

Basically, what this is is showing is that they did 12 concentrates against 12 cancers. Okay, each one of these is cancer. This is this is two lung cancers, this is two stomach cancers, and the 12 concentrates, any bar that's over 50 percent there actually killed 50 percent of the cells in 24 hours.

SPEAKER_01 17:49

There you go.

SPEAKER_02 17:49

A lot of flesh and healthy cells. But but let's look at the numbers here. If you've got prostate PC3 cancer, you have a one in twelve shots of getting that out of twelve can uh concentrates uh maybe helping you, and that's assuming it's made right. And not all of it's not made right. Right. If you have the prostate LNCAP cell type cancer, there's one, two, three different cannabis plants that but that's still we got we got a one in four chance now. So there's so many aspects of it where we see that it can fail when we say, oh, just take this, just do that, just do that. Because these are different strains and different uh the twelve, the twelve are different strains, and some are high CBD, some are high THC. They kind of evened it out. Um if you have this uh colon cancer, you had one, two, three, four, five, six of them actually do a reasonably good job. Yeah, but that's if you had SW480 cell type. If you've got HT29, they have never found a cannabis to hit that one so far in the receipt.

Data, Strains, And Cancer Variability

SPEAKER_00 18:57

I just dealt with a squamous cell carcinoma uh HPB driven, and the cannabis didn't help. And all the oil I've made for all these people over all the years, and I took my own oil, and it turned out it was blocking my own immune system from seeing the cancer cells. And I had an integrative oncologist that recognized that and was able to show me a study that backed it up. And I says, Well, I guess I can go another route, and it helped me deal with the nausea later on, and it helped me in in ways, but not people think that there's these silver bullet answers that blanket everything, and it's not it's just not yeah, but but you gotta admit six different ones can take out a cancer.

SPEAKER_02 19:40

I mean, look at all these cancers that have been affected. It's still random, it's still crazy. But but we see the truth here. All those people that and all the stories. Oh, this one was healed. Well, this one wasn't. Well, yeah, well, that's because this same strain that worked, every time it works, it's gone again. Why the plant regrows? Is it grown the same way? Did it have the same nutrients? Did it get the same sunlight? Did it get this exactly? There's so much to it, and until you're really tracking the data on it and and the outcomes of consumption, you're you're kind of doing a lot of this.

SPEAKER_00 20:13

A lot of it, exactly. Yeah, and you know, the good news is again, you're dealing with a relatively safe plant that for the most part, you know, unless you beat somebody over the head with a bale of it or make a rope out of it and hang them, it's really hard to hurt somebody with this plant. So you might not get the result you want, and many times you probably won't, but you're not gonna have an adverse side effect that that's gonna leave somebody paralyzed or with organ failure, or and then a lot of the other drugs that are you know legal single molecule drugs do that, and so even just by its own nature, the relative safety of a of a of a compound, whether it's a plant or some mixture of things, it's like well, that's got to be considered, and and that's one of the considerations, I believe, in how they schedule things. And you know, scheduling goes all the way up to what five or six or something like that.

SPEAKER_02 21:14

I think five is they were thinking of making a schedule six for cannabis, which isn't that bad an idea, but you know, why reinvent the wheel completely?

SPEAKER_00 21:23

Uh FDA has a category that they call grass, which is kind of an interesting acronym because it means generally regarded as safe. And there are compounds in that in that category that are actually not all that necessarily safe. I think MSG's in that category, and there's a lot of compounds that can have toxic effects, but they're generally regarded as safe. And cannabis is I think that's where it belongs, if it belongs anywhere.

SPEAKER_02 21:53

Exactly. It fits every rule of gross, and it's and the and there's even a self-designation within the rules on making something gross, and part of that is pointing out as long as it was been used up you know up until say 1953 and shown to be normal, it's okay. We got 2,000 years of experience with this point that we can point out was efficacious and useful and and part of our animal feed and part of our own feed. We got it through our animals in the past. We used to feed this to our cows, our pigs. We used to get this medicinally through our meats and dairies. We took that away from ourselves, and and we did that for a lot longer, ten times longer in our history than we had it taken away from us. There's some that believe that that some of the sickness we have is the deck is the um what the the cause and effect of doing that to our endocannabinoid system, because that's the other biggest component to all of this that I love to bring up first if I get into legislation. So let's put things into perspective before we start. Your body makes 150 endogenous cannabinoids. Exactly. This plant concentrate has been. Shown to make up 144 of the exact same phytocannabinoid keys, and they are all retro uh uh neuro uh they're retroactive to the nucleus in the cell to create change from the nucleus out. There are copies of our own keys, keys to a system that's made to manage our equilibriums, from diet to pain to sleep to to many other components of our bodies, even our organ equilibriums. So there is a symbiosis with this that is just amazing. Because I got to tell you, when I was first asked to do this, and people said, Oh, yeah, people curing cancer with uh cannabis, I said, You're smoking too much pot. And then they're like, Oh, no, no, there's this oil thing. And I dove into it, and I and I read about the ECS, and I dove into the ECS a little bit, and I'm like, there is an extraordinarily valid reason for not a panacea, but but as it being able to affect an adult in many systems, depending on which plant you're using. Well, this one might help your diet, or this one might help you.

SPEAKER_00 24:11

There's multiple mechanisms that that happens, and one of them is you know, some of the cannabinoids actually go after the the mutated cells, but just the ECS alone, your body is designed to destroy and and reuse mutated cells. Like that's part of our, you know, autophagy and apaptosis is all about us getting rid of you know broken cells. And it's part of it's part of our you know our human existence. And the ECS, like you say, it's a regulatory system. And as far as I know, I I don't think they still teach it in the primary curriculum of medical school, and and it's a functional system in the human body, it's a physiological system that they don't extensively teach about.

SPEAKER_02 25:08

Uh no, and working in surgery, if I had the pleasure to even talk to several doctors. Were you taught anything about the ECS? No, did you know there's an entire system for that? But here's the fun part every one of us, even as low as uh you know, basic text and process, we're taught about the the the CB receptors, yeah. And and then there's this and it's that for this, but they didn't tell us that stood for cannabinoid.

SPEAKER_00 25:34

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 25:35

C B is always stood for cannabinoids.

SPEAKER_00 25:37

You know, they recognize they're there, but you know, they don't they don't recognize it's amazing they do, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:44

Yeah, we just got to thank Ms. Shulam and and those people that got research too, Ms. Shulam, you know, including some throughout uh those that help, you know, get a lot of this started.

Endocannabinoid System 101

SPEAKER_00 25:55

Uh for example the only thing that I see that would be good about rescheduling it instead of where it sits right now is that it would open the door to research. And I don't think of any other thing that would be good about it, but that's the only thing that you know when they when they chose schedule one, uh Nixon knew what he was doing. He he was a a conniving son of a bitch. He knew he knew what he was doing, and and when you put something in schedule one, there's not a place for medical research. And they they they've had some quasi-research going on in what University of Mississippi, and they've done a little bit of this and that, but it's it's not it's not the type of research that pharma companies do on compounds um by even the smallest stretch.

SPEAKER_02 26:49

Very true. In fact, I understood he did some research that actually proved it worked and ignored it. Exactly. That came out.

SPEAKER_00 26:58

He threw it right out the door. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 27:01

Yeah, let's prove it kills him. Oh, it it healed him. Uh yeah, throw that all in away.

SPEAKER_00 27:06

That happened.

SPEAKER_02 27:06

That did happen.

SPEAKER_00 27:07

Exactly. Well, listen, let's talk about uh money down. Never get a big yellow dog if you want to have a conversation with somebody. Anyways, this is a call to action as much as an informational conversation, and I think that we can go on. You and I are a bunch of geeks when it comes to this, and we can go on forever because it's powerful science and it's interesting and important and it affects everybody, but we don't have three years to have that conversation. What we do have is a call to action, and um you have a petition that is gonna be featured in the show notes, so anybody can click on that link and and uh and and go after it. But like we just said before, petitions of this nature are symbolic, they're kind of like a UN resolution, you know, where we've got a powerfully worded response that we're but if enough people acknowledge it, it it does carry some weight. It it lets the powers that be know that wow, this many people, you know, have an opinion like this, and and you know, it could turn into something. But beyond that, you've got you've got some instruction or some hopes that people are gonna take their own action. And that's this is really where activism comes in is people acting, uh doing something. Why don't you tell us a little bit about what you would love to see come out of this?

Research Roadblocks And Politics

SPEAKER_02 28:47

Um, I'd love to see people you know contacting their their uh uh attorney general. Uh the according to 811A rules for changing anything within that schedule, uh Pamela Bondi, Attorney General, has the authority to instigate that that hearing or change. Uh the Secretary of Youth and Health Services, Robert F. Kennedy, has the ability to instigate that change. Um uh another uh group that that presents also has the ability to ask for that. And right now it's it's getting put together and being asked for by Compassion Center. It's established in 2001. We got 25 years of federally recognized patient care delivery, over 15,000 U.S. patients. We're the oldest federally recognized cannabis patient delivery care in this country, and we're operating in 18 states. We're in partnership with Stormy Ray Cardholders Foundation, Canalogics Foundation Research Institute, CFRI, Integrative Providers Association, which provides education, and we've built uh AMA credits for doctors and other providers on cannabis at Silicon, other things, and uh Center for Incubation Findings and Research, and of course, Coalition for Patient Rights. And there's also a pardon me, please, in there. But it's it's also about uh getting people to take that action, like you said. Um, and the reason we're putting together that so we can put together a proposal so it's going to all of them at once. We're even sending it to Trump. Here, RFK, here is a full um uh we're giving him an analysis, which you have to have for a descheduled process. We're giving the eight-point analysis that we've made. We're giving him the data, we're giving the information, we're we're putting it to uh Pamela Bonnie to say, hey, we just gave all the information to HHS. They've got this. We're giving it to her. Why don't you talk to him, have him talk to you, get they get together to make this happen because it's they all have the ability to do it. And there's no reason it shouldn't be in front of them and asked for. And and that's one of the things we're we're putting together to submit so that we have a you know, a full, authoritative, uh, properly structured ask within 811A structure for changing the schedule. So we can actually move this hearing forward and make it happen. And people contacting Pamela Bondi, RFK, Trump. And believe it or not, those are all the exact same page at uh whitehouse.gov contact. So if you go to Pamela Bondi, contact Pamela Gandhi, you click that, it goes over to White House Contact. You do RFK, it goes there too. So you just say dear, this, dear that. And you know, please, please deschedule this. This is not uh fair, and and and tell that you only need a couple sentences, but tell your story if you want to as well. We're gonna put up some text within the petition within a few days so that people can just cut and paste.

SPEAKER_00 31:37

That way, I want to make it easy. That's wise. If you can make it easy for people to take an action, they're more likely to take that action.

SPEAKER_02 31:45

Yeah, right now you can just say, I want this plant descheduled, and enough people just saying that is enough. So yeah, that's telling me all the reasons, just to get rid of it.

SPEAKER_00 31:55

Exactly. Let your will be known. You know, the government that we have is supposed to honor the will of the people. That's that's that's the whole idea.

SPEAKER_02 32:14

That's a good point. Or or standing up for that will at a way that uh is not shooting ourselves in the foot. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 32:22

And and this is a way to take action that, you know, I mean, I'm I'm I'm a a huge proponent of peaceful protests. I've led and participated in many, many protests, but I think today they don't carry the weight that they have in the past. There's so many things that have, I don't know, tarnished the notion of what a peaceful protest represents and who's actually involved and you know, people getting paid, and all the crazy stuff that happens today that maybe didn't happen 20, 30, 50 years ago um in the same way. Um, I think these other actions are are as important, if not maybe more important, because they're not you become numb. I I I think our leadership has become largely numb to the you know the the the standard peaceful protest, you know. It doesn't we don't get enough people together to to be meaningful. Go to some other countries, you know, they'll put 150,000 people together in the streets and block things up for a good long while, get their point across, or you go, you know, you oh yeah, but they're also awareness too.

SPEAKER_02 33:37

There's awareness, there's education, there's access. Exactly. In Indonesia, they raised, I think, the tuition like two dollars or ten dollars or something. They had a march of everyone there saying this ain't gonna happen. Exactly. And they raised our tuition and doubled it, and nobody believed under their tree at the quad. I mean, it's just crazy.

SPEAKER_00 33:55

Exactly. You got farmers dumping trailers of shit on the the the front doors of the of the legislation, and you know, that sends a message. I'm not saying we should dump trailers of shit, but you know, we can we can at least take this peaceful, thoughtful action that is clear and not fringe. You know, when the more crazy we get, the less they take us seriously. You know, we're we're we're just crazy people doing crazy things. This is something that reasonable people do when they're trying to make something happen. And I I I just think it's I've always been kind of like uh another petition, whatever. I mean, unless you can like in California, we have a ballot initiative. So if you get enough petitions, you can put something on a ballot and get voted on. That doesn't mean it's gonna go through even if it gets voted on, but at least you got a shot. But there's places, so many places in the country, and there's not a national ballot initiative. There isn't such a thing. So if you want to actually change something on a federal level, it's gotta go through a process, whether it's uh you know, submitting a bill into Congress and and going through those processes, or like you found these other alternative ways. I didn't realize that there were other ways besides submitting a bill um, you know, through the regular channels. So I'm learning as we're going as well.

The Call To Action: Deschedule Now

SPEAKER_02 35:23

Okay. Yeah, because you can you can have them both try to instigate that hearing and with that and like I said, we're we're trying to put together a nice professional package to everyone so that they they have it in hand and and we can say, Hey, compassion setter was here. We're here representing 15,000 patients and over 26 years of of research and care delivery, and and we're here to stay. And if you don't want to hear our voice, you write down we were here, which is what we did last December. I was there in December, uh, December 2nd for the schedule three hearing when it started. They didn't want to hear my testimony, mostly because they knew what I was gonna say, because they asked you what you're gonna say when you tell when they when you asked asked to provide testimony. Right part of that is I was gonna bring up the uh patent that that uh HHS has on Alzheimer's and dementia and neuro and neuron and neurological healing with cannabis cannabinoids, and they've had that patent since 1999. Have you known anybody since 1999 suffering from Alzheimer's that could have used that? Oh, a lot of folks. My my father. Yeah, a lot of folks.

SPEAKER_01 36:32

I know people that could use that.

SPEAKER_02 36:35

It's known to help, and they've known it, and they've had the proof since 1999. They've had the patent since 99, so they had the proof before that. Um, and so I'd like to point out, you know, the the HHS is over the FDA and over these groups, and yet they say this is effic non-efficacious when you hold a patent otherwise.

SPEAKER_01 36:51

Right.

SPEAKER_02 36:51

And so that's the type of thing. But but the other thing I wanted to point out in this is when they did the comments for schedule three, they got more response than they've ever gotten. The FDA's got never gotten that much response. Wow, and overwhelmingly, 70% was for de-scheduling. We've already spoken on their platform. They've got the data. We just have to say, open your folder and look at it. Yeah, because it's already there. The people have spoken on this already. So that's another thing. We kind of, you know, it's it's already there. You've already asked for this, and you got your answer.

SPEAKER_00 37:25

I love it. I love it. Well, Jason, we're we're we're pushing the boundaries of time and space here, but um I like I said, I I figured we were gonna. There's so much to talk about, but I'd like to direct people if you if you could consolidate all these things that we just talked about into a central thought to leave our listeners with, you know, there's people listening to this podcast that don't know anything about cannabis, and they're they're going, Wow, I didn't realize. Um, what what what what what would you leave them with?

SPEAKER_02 38:00

Um that i if it there is so much potential there, as you just heard, and and there's a lot of research that still needs to be done, and and some of it's still not being made right, but at the same time, without that opportunity to dive forward with that, we lose it all. And we also criminalize our youth. So, unless we step forward, take action, and ask for this to be descheduled, we're we're really hurting our next generation and ourselves and the planet. So, yeah, there's a lot to this. Uh, we haven't even gone into how hemp can replace paper and remediate soil and doesn't have to be. I'll have to have you come back to the planet. But that's like that's like it's we'd have five more conversations on why this is a benefit.

SPEAKER_00 38:43

Yeah. No, we'll have to have you back. We've got a lot more to talk about, but but for this purpose of directing people to this petition, why don't you get the name of the petition? The the link will be in the show notes of the of the podcast, and uh uh we'll we'll share that around. But um, what's the name of the petition if somebody just wants to look it up?

SPEAKER_02 39:04

Um, well, they're gonna have to get the link. We do have one at change.org, uh, which is sort of a support petition, right? Um, because you know you're responsible for pushing it, whether you put it there or not. That's just a platform. Well, I can make a petition, so it's not fun. We'd rather handle it ourselves. So um the the name on it is uh Deschedule uh Cannabis Petition Compassion Center CPR with dashes and uh that search might find it. Um the uh I think it's listed the same way, uh Compassion Center and Cannabis Petition at Change.org. Um, I can find I'll get you that link as well.

SPEAKER_00 39:49

So we've got it's actually on our petition. Be a few days before we get this published, but when we do, I'll make sure to put all those links up in there, make sure that everything's working.

SPEAKER_02 39:59

Okay, and I believe we do have a link on there to the uh change.org petition to okay to sign.

Legacy, Youth, And What’s Next

SPEAKER_00 40:05

I know it's on that one to get them to go to ours, but so that it's cross-link everything and give them good information, give them links to the to the White House, like you were saying, and and um you make it easy for them. You know, we we were supporting, I don't know, it was 10 15 years ago, there was a uh uh a bill going through HR 1523, I think it was, and um it was uh it was a bill to it was like four lines, and it just gave states the right to do their own. They could they could opt out of control of of schedule one if they wanted to. It was so simple and beautiful, and it could have easily opened those doors and it died a hundred times and finally never never got got reenacted. But uh we were trying back then, it was like a good 15 years ago.

SPEAKER_02 41:02

Well, just time to do it again.

SPEAKER_00 41:04

Yeah, exactly. That's the thing is we don't let up, we keep going. This is important, you know. I have kids and grandkids. My kids, my kids rallied in support when I was going through trial. My grandkids were there, they were only two, three years old, now they're teenagers. Now my grandson's using cannabis, and I I think to myself, you know, I wonder if he understands the work and the the sacrifices that have been made and and really what's at stake going on. So, you know, I'm gonna reach out.

SPEAKER_02 41:36

That's that's the other thing. We we turn our back on a lot of legacy that's pushed a lot of this forward if we let this fall back into a criminalization of schedule three. So much um, so many people have died to move this forward. It wouldn't be a shame. It'd be such a shame to let that that fail.

SPEAKER_00 41:54

Agreed. Well, Jason, this has been an uh extraordinary conversation. Uh I I like talking to people who know what they're saying. It's it's uh a lot of activists are good at throwing some words around, but they don't necessarily understand what they mean. You you clearly do, and um, I I I respect and honor that and would love to have you back to go deeper into some of this stuff. But right now, let's get this, let's get this comp this petition to be known and recognized, and get some signatures out there and get some uh get some communication with our legislators and our representatives and uh you know the leadership that's supposed to be leading. Let's show them what to do.

SPEAKER_02 42:37

That's right. Yeah, and just like you said, you know, do we tell them what we want? That's that's an important part of it.

SPEAKER_00 42:45

We tell them, we show them, and we tell them again. Jason, thank you so much for joining us today.

SPEAKER_01 42:52

Namaste.

SPEAKER_00 42:53

This has been another episode of the Healthy Living Podcast. I'm your host, Joe Grumbine, and I want to thank all of the listeners that make this show possible, and we will see you next time.