076 | Navigating Cannabis: What the Confused Consumer Needs to Know w/ Andrew DeAngelo
“ Cannabis has a real sense of humor. Cannabis also is very honest. Cannabis likes to make you feel.”
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We have a veteran cannabis industry change-maker, advocate, and expert with us. With over 40 years of involvement with cannabis, Andrew DeAngelo has made a massive impact on the cannabis space. And the psychedelic space stands on the shoulders of the cannabis industry.
I had so much fun talking to Andrew DeAngelo (both our cheeks were hurting at the end of the interview from laughing and smiling so much). Which is fitting because we discuss how cannabis has a very humorous teaching style.
Cannabis is a medicine I love and have a beautiful relationship with, yet I actually don't know too much about it. So, it's an honor to be learning together with you, the listeners! You might be surprised at some of Andrew’s advice for approaching cannabis.
Expect to learn a lot, be inspired by Andrew's presence, and be straight-up entertained with his “war on drugs” era stories.
Topics Covered:
Andrew’s 40 years of bringing cannabis & psychedelics out of the shadows
How Cannabis lifted Andrew out of depression during his teen years
Reflecting on navigating stigma in the 80s, 90s and early 2000s
Cannabis “Hip-story,” prohibition & targeting specific communities
The origin story of cannabis
What is cannabis useful for?
Terpenes and aromatics in cannabis
Why cannabis is so confusing for consumers
What you actually need to know when choosing a cannabis strain
THC, CBD, and other cannabinoids
Staying open and curious while navigating cannabis
The spirit of cannabis and teaching style of cannabis
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“I can barely name all the terpenes, it gets very confusing even for experts like me, let alone the the poor, tired, confused consumer that walks into a dispensary.”
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“This plant [created] this transformation for me. I’ve been activated. [I thought], maybe I can get this to other people, and maybe the same thing will happen to them.”
Where to Find Andrew DeAngelo:
About Andrew DeAngelo:
“I build organizations.” — Andrew DeAngelo is a visionary leader with a proven track record of enacting systemic social change and developing best practices in cannabis. Andrew lends his vast cannabis business and political expertise as a consultant for hire to the global cannabis community at large, including several strategic partnerships with the world's leading cannabis-centric service firms. Over three decades as an activist, Andrew worked on a variety of voter initiatives which legalized medical and adult-use cannabis in San Francisco, Washington D.C, and the State of California. As a co-founder of Harborside, Andrew has pioneered legal cannabis business processes and provided groundbreaking political engagement and thought leadership to the cannabis community — leading the design and development of gold-standard cannabis retail by innovating many “firsts” for the industry. This includes: introducing CBD medicines to heal severely epileptic children, implementing the first lab-testing program in the history of cannabis dispensing, creating child-resistant packaging for edibles, standardizing inventory tracking, initiating senior outreach, and successfully preventing the federal government from seizing Harborside in forfeiture actions against the company in 2012. Andrew began his political career as an activist while studying for his MFA in acting at the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco. He has starred in several films and runs an entertainment production company, DeAngelo Brothers Productions (DAB), with his brother Steve. Andrew is co-founder of the non-profit Last Prisoner Project (LPP) and a founding Board of Directors member of the California Cannabis Industry Association (CCIA) where he served from 2013 to 2020.
Looking for a professional coach to support you on your psychedelic path?
Look no further! Along with being the host of the Modern Psychedelics Podcast, Lana is a 3x certified professional coach who works with people on the psychedelic path.
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Lana Pribic: [00:00:00] Hello, I am here with Andrew DeAngelo. Welcome to the show. It's such a pleasure to have you here today.
Andrew DeAngelo: Thanks for having me on.
Lana Pribic: Yeah, we're gonna be learning about cannabis and your work in it today. So before we get into the juicy stuff, can you please introduce yourself to the listeners?
Andrew DeAngelo: Sure. My name's Andrew D'Angelo. Some of your listeners may be familiar with my older brother, Steve D'Angelo. He and I have spent the last 40, 50 years working on bringing plant medicine out of the shadows and into the light. We've done that mostly with cannabis plant. But my brother just built a retreat center in Jamaica and...
So we are also working with psychedelic master plants and trying to now bring those out of the shadows and into the light also.
Lana Pribic: Oh, amazing.
Andrew DeAngelo: yeah I had a company called Harborside Health Center in [00:01:00] California during the medical cannabis framework here, and that was one of the largest medical cannabis dispensary in the world, and we had a few different locations throughout California.
And then I left the company once the adult use framework flipped over saw the writing on the wall. And now I started a nonprofit organization called Last Prisoner Project, which is mission is to free all cannabis prisoners. And I am, I hope there'll be an an organization like that for psychedelic prisoners as well.
But and I work as a consultant consulting both. Cannabis and I hope psychedelic companies to help them educate folks about the medicine and also create experiences and therapeutic modalities for folks to enter into containers if you will, safe containers if you will for everything from cannabis dispensaries and lounges to ketamine clinics [00:02:00] and psychedelic therapy centers.
I love to build things that's what I love to do and I love to work with entrepreneurs and non profits and everybody in our ecosystem to build things in a good way, in a mindful way, in a way that's respectful and reverent of these plants and these medicines. So that's what I'm all about that's what I've been doing for the last, I'm on, I'm celebrating my 40th year in the cannabis trade.
So
Lana Pribic: Wow.
Andrew DeAngelo: Yeah, it's a little milestone for me.
Lana Pribic: A lot has changed in the last 40 years, hasn't it?
Andrew DeAngelo: Oh yeah, yeah, when I started there was a guy named Ronald Reagan who was president, and those were pretty dark, yeah, those were pretty dark days for,
Lana Pribic: Yeah.
Andrew DeAngelo: Cannabis and psychedelic reform and, a lot of our people were getting locked up.
Lana Pribic: Did you ever think we would come to the place that we are right now?
Andrew DeAngelo: I actually thought we'd get to this place a lot sooner. When I started my [00:03:00] activism, and I thought, Five, ten years max, and we'll have this done and, but it's taken a lot longer. I thought the, I just thought change would happen faster. When you're young, I started when I was 16 years old, I was very idealistic and but in some respects I'm surprised that, particularly with psychedelics, what's happened given the stigma surrounding those compounds for so long.
And the just the power that those master plants and compounds have. Cannabis is also a powerful master plant, but it doesn't have the same kind of power. It's a different type of power. And so I'm a little surprised to see the psychedelic movement proceed so quickly now, especially in the last few years.
And I'm excited, like all of us in the community are, to see that progress. I'm also mindful. of, some of the red flags [00:04:00] and dangers ahead. That's what I've been doing and all of our work is just getting started, really. And it's a, it's both an exciting and I think time where we have to make good decisions.
Lana Pribic: 40 years is a long time. And I think that in itself speaks to just how important this is to you and how devoted you are to this plant. Can you speak a little bit about why cannabis is so important to you, what it's done for you and really why you have devoted, the majority of your life to this?
Andrew DeAngelo: Many people who have a similar devotion to cannabis as I do, We'll tell you there's a very personal story connected to that devotion, and I'm no exception. When I was 16, I was in high school, I was an athlete, I got hurt. I wanted to be a professional athlete, that was my dream. I came from a broken family, I had a lot of trauma growing up.
My brother went to prison, all kinds of things happened. And I was [00:05:00] depressed. I was intractably depressed, suicidally depressed, and I was only 16 years old. Luckily, my older brother handed me a joint one day when he saw me in this condition and a little voice inside my head told me to try it, even though everybody around me, my parents, my school, everything, the society, the television, the commercials, everything.
Was saying don't do that a little voice in my head said do that. And so I did that. Yeah I did that and I felt immediate relief Physical relief from my injury. I had a lower back injury and it was very painful and More importantly really psychic and spiritual relief Because I realized that there was more to my life than sports and that I could dream lots of different things I could be whatever I wanted to I was still very early in my life[00:06:00] and that's what made me so devoted because that experience, that transformation that I had in my mind, body, and spirit, I wanted other people to experience that.
I saw a lot of people around me in the 1980s, it was a very hard time and people were in obvious need of healing. The Cold War was happening and there was wars all over the world like there are today and there was terrible racism like there is today and nuclear holocaust was something we went to bed and woke up in the morning thinking about.
It was as dark a time as we're living in right now. And I saw a lot of people that needed healing around our country, our communities, our, my school, my schoolmates, my teachers. And so I thought I'm, I have access to this plant and it did this transformation for me. Now I'm a lot more than just a [00:07:00] sports guy.
I'm into all kinds of different things. I've been activated. my compassion, my empathy has been activated. My inspiration's been activated. My politics has been activated. And, gosh, maybe I can just trade this. I can get this to other people, this plant. And if this, maybe the same thing will happen to them.
I knew intuitively. Being young is terrific because you have this intuitive knowledge, you're such an uncarved block, you haven't, the world hasn't made you cynical yet. Or at least in my case, hasn't made me cynical yet. And so I intuitively knew the plant was smarter than I am.
That the plant has a soul, that the plant is speaking to us and teaching us things. And the reason. The psychoactivity is there, one reason, I'm not a plant, I can't exactly say. Probably the reason it's there is to make sure bugs don't eat yet. But but I believe that plants are the [00:08:00] great alchemists of the universe and they've given us so much, both psychoactive and other healing medicinal things.
Properties and compounds and teas and all kinds of things. And, , they have intelligence and , our job is to just tell the story and the history of these things in a good respectful, reverent way, and to also trade in them in a respectful and sustainable way. And create whatever business models we have to, to, achieve that. I know there's a lot of talk in, in, in both cannabis and psychedelic community.
Cannabis is a little bit farther along as a quote unquote industry. If you even want to be an industry. Ha. Is a big question in, in, in and of itself. But a lot of lessons there and, but. That's, I think, our job in the community, those of us who want to do this in as righteous a way as we can, as respectful and reverent a way as we can we have to [00:09:00] develop models that reflect that and no matter what it costs and no matter how inefficient it might be. Yeah. In the
Lana Pribic: yeah, what was it like for you, in the 80s, 90s, early 2000s, navigating the stigma and being such a believer in cannabis? Wow yeah.
Andrew DeAngelo: 1980s, we had to hide that we were stoners. I wore it on my sleeve about as much as one could, if you want to interact with mainstream society, and oftentimes that means making a living you, you couldn't let people know you were a stoner and you had to be, you had to find other stoners using codes, you had to find other people who loved the plants.
By cultural events and Grateful Dead shows and raves and Burning Man and [00:10:00] all those things were happening in the 90s, certainly and and in the 80s somewhat too and That's where we found each other, and that's how we communed with each other, and that's how we traded with each other and but, I was ambitious, and I wanted to change the mainstream world, not just our own little world.
And and so that made me an activist, a political activist, that made me a creator, a creative storyteller And an entrepreneur I, but the navigating the stigma was tough because you had to be in the closet to do that. And you had to get, you know, just making sure you don't smell like weed, just that was like a, just that was like really hard.
And and a big deal, because you'd slip up every once in a while and somebody will pull your side, say, Hey man. Better go check yourself you smell like weed. And if you were lucky, someone would check you that way. If you weren't lucky, it would be, perhaps an authority [00:11:00] figure checking you.
Or a cop checking you. Getting busted was a very real thing. Getting searched... This is when all the search laws got a lot more liberal for the cops. And so they could, if they smelled weed or lied and profiled you and said they smelled weed they could search you anywhere, anytime, anyplace.
Especially if you're on campus in a school environment. And and people did. If you had a weed leaf patch on your backpack, your locker would get searched. Your backpack would get searched. You would be harassed. It was dangerous to wear a weed leaf. It was like a really risky thing.
You had to really think about that. Even a tie dye t shirt, right? You had to think about wearing a tie dye t shirt. So that was the environment then. It was so hard for us to grok it now, especially if you didn't... grow up at that time, right? If you came around a little bit [00:12:00] later it's an unfathomable, that there was that much stigma and that much danger, that really danger.
Then in the 1990s, things got a little bit better cause we legalized medical in California. The revolution began. And we were able to reframe cannabis as a medicine. For a long time, our activism was around individual rights and liberty, and, alcohol, tobacco, why not weed?
But those arguments didn't work. It wasn't until we put people dying of HIV and AIDS in front of the cameras and showed that, this was medicine for them. And that this was medicine for little old ladies with cancer. And this was medicine for children with cancer. And this was medicine, and we were showing that.
We were telling those stories. And that, and when our activism got to the patients, we've seen this I think in the psychedelic world too. When we frame this as medicine. One, we help a lot more people. [00:13:00] Two, the story of these plants and these compounds. I'm in the camp that pretty much all use is medical, these compounds, even if your intention is otherwise Certainly with cannabis, there's an endocannabinoid system and, something's happening. With psychedelics, it's a it's a lot more complicated. But one could make a similar argument that almost all use is medical.
And so when we frame things in this way, it's helpful. Right now we're seeing a little bit of backlash in cannabis against things that appeal to children and our community, the cannabis industry, the quote unquote industry part of it, both hemp derived cannabinoids, underground folks, and even licensed cannabis, there's just been an awful lot of branding that, in mainstream circles, is interpreted [00:14:00] as appealing to children.
And whether it really is appealing to children or not doesn't really matter if enough people think it is. And then we get into a backlash situation. And both our communities, it's really one big community, the cannabis psychedelic community, but it, they are different and distinct from each other as well.
We've experienced backlashes over the last five, ten decades. The first backlash was against the jazz musicians and the jazz folks for weed in the twenties and thirties. And then the feds cracked down on that. And there was a big backlash against that.
And we've seen it with, Other things too we saw it in the 80s and 90s with hip hop music at Cypress Hill and the these folks are creating both pushing the boundaries in really important ways, but also, inspiring backlashes.[00:15:00] And we've gone through a pretty big arc in the last 50 years.
We've seen what happens and by framing these, framing this as medicine, as healing, as something that's in the community largely to heal is, that's the story. I still believe we should be telling about cannabis and now psychedelics for certain and I hope that in, in the cannabis community and industry we'll move back to those roots that we come from.
I hope we'll move back. Is cannabis a fun, relaxing, yeah, it is but it's also a very important mechanism for health and wellness and. When you look at the history, I call it the hipstery we've made the most progress when we've told the story in that manner. Look what MAPS has done with psychedelics, even a pretty powerful synthetic compound like MDMA very close to [00:16:00] FDA approval.
And it's because it's a medicine, okay? This is a healing agent. And it, a lot of progress has been made in that way. And so I, that's what I'm, the messaging I'm, I think is important. And I think it'll help with the stigma. It'll help with backlashes.
It'll help with normalizing. It'll help with... Mindfulness, making sure we're doing this in a good way. And, we might have to move a little slower in some regards than we did with cannabis. But and maybe we need to pump the brakes a little bit in some respects. But being mindful doesn't always mean slowing down.
I think it just means being more aware and behaving accordingly.
Lana Pribic: Yeah, thank you so much for sharing your background. I think it put a few things in context for me listening to your story. One, just, I get why you're doing what you're doing and why you continue to do it. After, navigating the stigma that you did, [00:17:00] while also navigating how life changing cannabis was to you.
And it also put into context just For me personally, how I take for granted the ability to even have a podcast about psychedelics and speak freely about it and, not have to hide that part of myself because hiding parts of ourselves is it's just soul sucking.
Andrew DeAngelo: Yeah,
Lana Pribic: it's hard when you can't fully express yourself.
And yeah, I imagine that. That had an impact for you and others growing up, having to suppress that part of yourself.
Andrew DeAngelo: right. And if you're in the trade, you have to hide that whole part of your life too. And
You spend a lot of your time and energy, your creative energy and your learning energy, you learn how to hide. You don't learn how to grow, you don't learn how to manage, you don't learn how to lead. You learn how to hide, and you learn how to manage with [00:18:00] hiding.
And you learn how to lead by hiding everybody. And, it's, I found that very not so fun. I trained as an actor, That was the thing I wanted to be in addition to a stoner when I went to college. And so hiding was just antithetical to being an expressive, creative actor type person.
In, in many ways it allowed me to hide more effectively, right? Because I could act my way through a lot of hairy situations but, and talk my way out of a lot of. Very dangerous situations. But But yeah, it's not a lot of fun to be in a closet of any kind, of anybody. It's, So I'm glad that you have that freedom, and you feel that, that sense of freedom.
I, I it means, progress , has been made. Heh.
Lana Pribic: Absolutely. Yeah, let's get into a little bit about the actual plant itself, because this [00:19:00] is a new medicine that we're covering on the podcast. And I'm sure that people listening, just like myself, absolutely love cannabis, but don't actually know that much about it. I know I can't be the only one here. I actually want to start with the origin story of You know anything about that?
Because I've heard, that cannabis first started in India and in Africa. What do you know about the origin story of this plant that you can share with us?
Andrew DeAngelo: Well, how do human beings come upon this plant and why is there an endocannabinoid system? Every day you read about archeological evidence of humans that have been around a lot longer than just a few thousand years. I think there was a fossil dug up recently, one million year old humanoid type.
Creature. We've had many civilizations come and go. We've had many types of organizations and tribes and [00:20:00] cities. It's really been quite a
long journey for humanity. In the context of life itself, we're on the end of a 13 billion year journey here. So I think that somehow plants and animals evolved together. We're not the only ones with the endocannabinoid system, right? And somehow this plant. And the animals, animals and plants survive together.
Animals often carry seeds of plants and when you eat a plant and then you poop on the ground and the seed gets spread that way. So it's a symbiotic relationship. We emerged from the muck together. And. And plants are upside down. Their head is where, in the roots.
Their brain is the roots. Our brain is inside this little container up here, and everything else comes down from that. They're always on their head, and [00:21:00] they're grabbing everything from the earth, right? All their alchemy, and all their, the sun and the outside is feeding underneath, and underneath is feeding.
up and we eat the plants and do all kinds of things with plants. I think it's a very ancient relationship. I think that it was probably food and medicine was the origin, not fiber or rope or fuel. There was a recently a study by a chemistry group. That, that they concluded that it was fiber that we started with the cannabis plant.
I disagree with that. I think it was probably food or psychoactivity or both. But that was many thousands and thousands, tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of years ago. , there ain't no way any of us are ever going to know the true actual origin story. I don't think but, it's great to do the archeology [00:22:00] and to learn more and more about it.
It appears that for modern day humanity, call it the last 10, 000 years things emerged either from India or Africa, probably it might very well have been both. Or could it have just been Africa because everything Africa, right? So many things Africa. But I don't know. I do know that cannabis came to the Americas um, you know, is not indigenous to, to the Americas and came to the Americas by European settlers.
And and then, came from south. America into North America by land or from Jamaica also came in um, psychoactive cannabis was not present with the pilgrims, quote unquote here or the settlers or the cologne colonists, depending on your [00:23:00] viewpoint and. They were bringing it for rope and food and oil they weren't bringing it to, for psychoactivity or that.
There's no evidence to suggest that. There's more evidence to suggest that indigenous folks and slaves figured out the psychoactive part of it by being the ones that grew the plants for the colonists. But there's a lot of evidence that shows that, what we now have in North America came from Mexico and Jamaica during the Mexican Revolution, turn of the century, 19th to 20, 1900s to 20, 20th century and and about 110, 120 years ago is when that migration started to happen and it didn't take long for prohibition to follow on the heels of that.
And again, remember you're talking about mostly black and brown people who are [00:24:00] using cannabis in those days. There was a backlash because of racism and xenophobia, I guess you call it. And and prohibition wasn't about the plant, never has been about the plants. Any of the plants.
It's about the people who use them. And and so that's, that was the origin story of prohibition was really to continue a police. A police state , if you will, and to go after jazz musicians, black and brown folks, immigrants Mexicans and Latinos, Chicanos. Yep. And then, and now we're un thawing.
That now we're in into a new phase. Much more. The thaw is very quickly fading. We're, and we're coming out of that ice age and into something that's going to be a lot more enlightened. The age of enlightenment that I think these plants and these compounds are going to bring in a new age of [00:25:00] enlightenment and not a second too soon.
Lana Pribic: Mhm. Yeah. And so is the drug war, right? That's the way it's been. It has never been about the drugs. It's been about targeting certain communities.
Andrew DeAngelo: I'm afraid that,
Lana Pribic: is not in isolation for that.
Andrew DeAngelo: I'm afraid that's right. Yeah. I'm afraid that's right. Yeah.
Lana Pribic: yeah. What is cannabis useful for? And I know that there's probably so many conditions, but could you just provide listeners with an overview of what cannabis can be very helpful for, and I don't know if you want to get into different strains and all of that, but go ahead.
Andrew DeAngelo: It was used as a sacrament, really or earliest on, and as a medicine. I'm putting fuel and fiber aside, just the psychoactive properties. People used cannabis to pray, most likely. The archaeological evidence suggests that. Or to celebrate, or to be in ceremony. Or to[00:26:00] use as an aphrodisiac, or other types of... ecstasy inducing states. No doubt it was used as medicine. We have that in ancient Chinese medicinal texts and Ayurvedic texts from Southern India that spell it out.
Lana Pribic: Wow.
Andrew DeAngelo: used a lot for digestion insomnia irritability, melancholy. Inflammation, all kinds of inflammation anesthetic just about anything that that you can think of cannabis can, for some, if not most people, be helpful for. It doesn't mean that they're, if you have cancer, all you do is cannabis to treat it. No, it doesn't mean that, but cannabis can be part of a treatment regimen that beats cancer. I use cannabis every day. I'm, I have some chronic [00:27:00] pain.
At my age that I treat it for, but I mainly use it to cope, just cope with being alive in this hard modern time that we live in. I cope with this life I've lived bringing these plants out of the shadows into life. It's a hard road to travel. There's anxiety and insomnia and difficulty and, feasts and famines and fortunes won and fortunes lost and it's a real rollercoaster of existence and it's been a real medicine for me to lift my spirits when I'm got the blues or inspire me when I have writer's block or Chill me out when all I can think about is the catastrophes that my mind can dream up.
Or I'm anxious, heh about a specific thing or just in general, and and so that's what I use it for [00:28:00] on a daily basis. And... You know a lot of people report the same thing using it as a relaxant. It's also a wonderful appetite stimulant Particularly, you know getting into strains and terpenes is really hard because the science of that Changes literally on the daily.
There was a new study drop yesterday the day before that questions what role terpenes actually play and the scent of Cannabis, so everybody knows when you smell cannabis or some of your listeners who have smelled cannabis No, it's a very pungent The aromas vary between all the different strains you can smell one strain of cannabis It smells like strawberries and you can smell another strain that smells like lemons and you can smell another strain that smells like something that's [00:29:00] spicy, that smells spicy, or like an onion. All these different aromas come off the plant, and we've thought for a long time that it was terpenes. Terpenes are responsible for the aromas, or play a role in the aromas of lots of plants, like the rose. Or the lemon or a strawberry like I just mentioned.
But there's also aromatics that plants have. And so this study that was just released said no, it's not terpenes. It's aromatics that is doing it. So now we have to figure out the, we, now we have to start. Talk about high lab testing costs. Testing for terpenes is like very hard to do. All you can really do is, you can't test for individual terpenes.
It's an enormously expensive process that's really not scalable. What's more scalable is you can test for the total percentage of terpenes that are present in any [00:30:00] one sample of cannabis. On a percentage basis of the total volume of the plant. So if you're weighing a gram and... Usually the terpenes are somewhere between one half of one percent and four percent.
It's very rare you get a terp profile. above 4%. Again, these are oils and things in the plant. They're very strong. A little goes a long way. And that's, but now there's these aromatics in there and I don't even know what all the aromatics are called. I can barely name all the terpenes.
There's I don't know. 25, 30 terpenes and so it gets very confusing even for experts like me, let alone the consumer, the poor, tired, confused consumer that walks into a dispensary and they see cannabis, sativa, indica, hybrid, doesn't mean
Lana Pribic: so overwhelming.
Andrew DeAngelo: Yeah, it's totally overwhelming and scientifically wrong.
There's cannabis, indica, sativa, hybrid, it's wrong. It, Sativas are not stimulating[00:31:00] all the time or even most of the time for most people. Indicas are not sedative for most people most of the time. The actual labeling, the labeling Indica Sativa is often done wrong either by the labs or by the dispensers.
The DNA tests of the strain, the strains are often mislabeled or renamed. So the consumer is confused and our community needs to do a lot better job with all of that. Because it's become an industry, if I'm in Pennsylvania and I want to bring in some OG Kush from California.
And somebody's got a patent or a trademark on OG Kush, I'll just, I'll bring it in. I'll just name it Pennsylvania Kush. And next thing you know, you've got a different name on a strain. And then the next person who grabs the Pennsylvania Kush, and they're like, ah, this Kush thing, I don't like the way it [00:32:00] sounds, let's call it.
Pennsylvania pride. And then the strains changed again. And and so the labs don't know, all the labs can go for is what the grower says the strain is unless you do a DNA test on it. And that's again, very expensive, not required by law or regulation, not done, therefore not done.
Unless you're in the business of being a breeder or something like that and then you're using them, right? So it is confusing. It is hard. Cannabis is an enormous, I mean there's thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands potentially strains. It's one of the magics of cannabis. , she doesn't want to be put in a box.
She doesn't want to be defined as one thing. She doesn't want to be labeled. She doesn't want very hard to have a consistent experience. Even when you're growing the same two plants off the same mother. The clones off the same mother, they can turn out different. They can turn out different. Literally, the tert profile can turn out different.
[00:33:00] The aromatic profile can turn out, they could be growing right next to each other in the same thing. And it's just, it's part of the power of cannabis, man. It's just it's millions of years of evolution. This plant has grown in so many different longitudes and latitudes and all these, It's alchemy that's created both for warding off pests and for embracing animals and others, and drawing us to her.
So we. Plants don't have feet, they can't move around, and so it's very helpful. Ha, if they seduce these other creatures that have feet and hands, and thumbs, and, they can move us, propagate and move it around, it's very helpful. I think a lot of the alchemy, a lot of the alchemy was the plant just trying to reproduce itself, right?
And as all living things want to do.
Lana Pribic: That's a really interesting take. I love that. And it adds even more confusion to the consumer.
Andrew DeAngelo: Ha yeah.
Lana Pribic: totally relate with that. I'm in [00:34:00] Canada. So we have an abundance of dispensaries that I can walk into anytime. And I also always want to, have something in my supply here and I get so overwhelmed and I don't know what to look for.
I don't know what questions to ask. So I'm wondering, let's spend some time. Offering your counsel to the listeners, what do people need to know when they walk into a dispensary or they're ordering their cannabis or they're looking at different strains? What do we need to know? I heard you talk about terpenes.
I heard you talk about THC, CBD, indica sativa. What are the things that we actually need to know when choosing the right strain ? And then there's also different consumption methods, right?
Andrew DeAngelo: I always advise people to know yourself first. So why are you drawing the cannabis in the first place? And figure that why out. It's going to be a different why for everybody. There might be more than one why. [00:35:00] I've got more than one why , but whatever that why is. So I'll just use myself as an example.
For chronic pain. It's taken me some trial and error, but I've found that capsules work best for me a live rosin or a whole plant extract capsule and so Now I use those for chronic pain, but I found that For anxiety or insomnia, inhaled cannabis works better for me. When I'm wound up, like by 2 in the afternoon, I've been working like my first 6 hours as done, I'm all wound up because the work days just, wound me down.
From my morning workout and meditation it's time to have a little inhaled cannabis, take a little break settle, get myself out of my head, try to get myself back into my heart a little bit. Or more creatively in my head. Sometimes it just makes me a little more creative in my head.
But [00:36:00] it eases. My anxiety a bit or takes the edge off of that that first. And then, in the evening when I'm with my partner and we're, I'm preparing our meal or we're about to have our meal, we like to have, we like to inhale flour or hash. And that enhances our meal.
It get it stimulate, yeah, stimulates that appetite. And with inhaled things, I'm looking for something that's going to help me with anxiety and chill me out. So in terms of terpenes, I'm looking for mercine, or there are these terpene wheels you can find.
Leafley's got a good one. And that they sure tell you what the common effects of each terpene are. Okay. The problem is,
Lana Pribic: can I interrupt you? Can you explain, very simply, what do we need to know about what is a terpene?
Andrew DeAngelo: All right. A terpene is. It's a chemical inside a cannabis plant. Just like
Lana Pribic: are they all psychoactive?
Andrew DeAngelo: We don't know if terpenes are psychoactive or [00:37:00] not.
Lana Pribic: Oh, interesting.
Andrew DeAngelo: The evidence suggests they are not psychoactive. But that they contribute to what is commonly called the entourage effect. I call it the ensemble effect so that The alchemy of the plant, some of these terpenes may amplify or de amplify some of the cannabinoids that, that may occur in the plant or bind with them in such a way.
That it creates an ensemble effect that is unique to that strain or that profile. Now we've got aromatics thrown in there too but but really what, once you know what it is you're looking for, okay and what the purpose is if your purpose is something that's gonna be addressed with potency.
So let's say you want to take the edge off, but you want to function. You're a single mom. You gotta be with your kids. And you find that if you have a little bit of cannabis, you're a little bit more patient with your kids. You're a little bit more [00:38:00] present. And you're not, in your head as much, you're not worrying as much.
And you're not as quick tempered. But if you take too much it's not a good experience for you. , because you know yourself now, you're going to want to ask for things with lower potency. That are. And there is a process of trial and error.
There simply is. And that's why a lot of people when they find, a brand that works for them, or a product category that works for them. I find that whole plant extract capsules work for me. Doesn't really matter what the strain of cannabis is. Doesn't really matter if it's Indica Sativa.
Doesn't really matter who is the producer. If it's got a certain milligram dose, and it's a whole plant expression, I'm probably gonna be okay with it. I can't get the same thing over and over again in a whole plant capsule. You simply can't right now. But I can consistently get a whole [00:39:00] plant extract of some kind expressed in a capsule.
Or I can make my own from live rosin that I grow in my garden. Which is something I also do. Ha. And that's, potency is a big important thing to be mindful of because too much cannabis is an uncomfortable experience for any of us, including me. I've had, it's happened to me, I don't know.
A couple hundred times in my life uh, and um, uh, um, yeah, it's not super comfortable experience. And so we want to avoid that and we want to find that sweet spot. There's a Goldilocks thing and, when people find something worse for them, I certainly encourage them to keep going back to that one thing, but I also encourage them to keep experimenting and widen your scope of products and brands and things that.
Might speak to you. If something doesn't work so good, just don't return to that particular thing again. But keep your curiosity open because as we've mentioned, there's thousands and thousands of different possibilities [00:40:00] here. And you would be doing yourself a disservice if you don't keep checking it out.
And learning new things. About These different product categories and different expressions. And now in, in certain markets like California, probably and Canada, you can get edibles now that have vitamins in 'em that have, vitamin B different melatonin for sleep vitamin B for stimulation different nootropics different, supplements and other things in there. The formulations are getting more sophisticated, right? And you can try them out if you have a hard time sleeping and Like I can't take melatonin. Melatonin gives me really weird dreams and whacks me out makes me dizzy. I can't take it, but I do take this CBD hemp capsule that's that's not even THC, just CBD and for some reason it works for me.
I don't know why. It's a particular brand, a particular group called Hemp Mellow, and they just have a sleep formulation that, that works for me. And [00:41:00] And I take that when I'm having a hard time sleeping. It took me a while to find that. It took me a long time to find that. And, but I did eventually, through my curiosity, I was able to find yet another thing that, that works for
Lana Pribic: hmm. Mm
Andrew DeAngelo: and, and,
And so you find... There is an element of trial and error. Good dispensaries with well trained staffs can be super helpful also. Right now most doctors and caregivers and nurses are not trained in the endocannabinoid system. They're not trained in all these products. Most of them are not stoners.
So it's hard to get information from those folks. But a really well trained team can give a lot of good information too. And then there's, the good old fashioned, now good old fashioned internet, and reputable information sites like Leafly, like Greenflower Media, these are [00:42:00] places where, that have really reliable, verifiable information that people can study up on before they go to dispensary, all right?
And so that You can be a little bit more educated because it will be overwhelming the just expect that it's like going to a big it's like going to costco Or one of the or any big box. I like when I go
Lana Pribic: much more calm and soothing.
Andrew DeAngelo: Yeah, but like when I go to those big box stores, I get overwhelmed.
I'm just like overwhelmed by it, right? It's not quite that it's not like 30, 000 square feet of overwhelm But it but there are usually a few hundred products in each dispensary And there's 30 kinds of flour and there's 30 kinds of a pens and there's you know 25 edibles and there's you know And which one do you get?
And that's why there inevitably is a little bit of trial and error. So have fun with it. Have a good time [00:43:00] with it. And as long as you live by the rule of making sure you, your potency doesn't get above your threshold. You'll learn different things about, which things are a little more stimulative, which things are a little more sedative.
Sometimes you can go on Indica Sativa, oftentimes you can't but but you can go by your own. experience and you can learn certain things about lab test results. Keep a journal. A lot of places have journals. And when you get something with high Lyme aid in it, or Lymean in it you can see what that did to you.
And if it gave you a good experience, maybe that terpene's one that your body likes. Or and see if there's something else and try it again. And, oh wow, it wasn't the terpene, it was that strain. It was, so go back to that strain and that, [00:44:00] that dispensary. And hopefully they'll have it.
Heh. And these supply chains are were, are being developed right now. If you think about super well developed supply chains, they've been around for decades and decades and ours has not been. And so exercising a little patience with all this is also a wise thing to do.
And talk to people and love and trust about what their experiences have been like too. It's a great source of information as well.
Lana Pribic: I love the approach of it being self guided and experiential and coming from this place of curiosity. I wasn't expecting this to be your answer. I had all these questions for you around explain CBD versus THC to us and what are terpenes and what are cannabinoids and, what is indica and sativa and I love that you're encouraging people to treat it as their own personal journey and
Andrew DeAngelo: yeah, I didn't talk about cannabinoids, I guess I should for a [00:45:00] second, but, because they're finding new ones all the time but THC is the ones that, the one everyone knows and loves the most, it's the most common quote unquote psychoactive part active ingredient, okay, if you will of the cannabinoids, but there's others like CBD, which are pretty much most people know now, which is not as psychoactive or non psychoactive and is a great anti inflammatory at the right doses.
Or a relaxant and I use it for insomnia like I mentioned. Then there are, cannabinoids like CBN and CBG that are also a little bit more for sleep and relaxants and there are cannabinoids like I think it's THCA. No, or THC V THC V and that helps you lose weight. I think it is.
Um, Yeah uh, some cannabinoids inspire the munchies. And [00:46:00] like THC, and and others like THC V, there's still a lot of science that needs to be done on this and so don't go out and start calling everybody up and trying to find THC V because but there there's some studies to suggest that this is a cannabinoid that can actually suppress your appetite.
Cannabinoids are really important because they are active ingredients. Whereas terpenes and flavonoids and aromatics are not as active in, in the scientific sense, but act more as supporting actors, if you will. Um, um, Yeah like, like, like, you know, um, THC is Hamlet and everybody else is, carrying the spear.
Lana Pribic: Gotcha.
Andrew DeAngelo: Yeah,
Lana Pribic: But we need all of them, right?
Andrew DeAngelo: can't have Shakespeare without spear carrier.
Lana Pribic: Yeah. Awesome.
Andrew DeAngelo: carried more than a few spears in my [00:47:00] day as a young actor. Uh, uh, It's a rite of passage. Ha, ha, Ha. Aye, my lord! Ha, ha, Ha. Ha, Ha,
Lana Pribic: I've definitely done some embarrassing Shakespeare in high school and middle school.
Andrew DeAngelo: Oh, yes, that's right. Yeah all grown up, professionally trained actors can embarrass themselves with Shakespeare. It's a tough one. Tough one to get right.
Lana Pribic: Totally. Um, Okay. So you talked about the spirit of cannabis at the beginning. How have you come to know the spirit of cannabis? And can you explain that to us through your perspective?
Andrew DeAngelo: Indigenous people and cultures can articulate this much better than I can probably. But but I was young. I was 16 when, cannabis changed my life. And so I didn't have a lot of default mode networks built yet, if you will.
And and I I was coming out of this, My entire experience from the time I was [00:48:00] three years old to 16 was playing sports, and I didn't really Notice things like nature and creeks and trees, and I never went camping I never I didn't notice a lot of things around me. I didn't I Like I said I came from a broken family. I had a lot of trauma, so I was in my head a lot I was trying to deal with that a lot and sports was a way for me to Get it all out. Heh. And make sense of the world. Cause games always have the same rules.
And they're very predictable. And my life was not very predictable. Pretty chaotic and confusing. Cannabis, the plant, the spirit, that, that plant spoke to me. And I knew that there was something more going on. I didn't have any, I was basically an atheist. before that experience with cannabis.
And especially like the first few months, my first, I don't know, call it [00:49:00] 50 sessions, or 100 sessions, where it's just mind blowing for me. And I knew that there was a web of life. I knew that there was connectivity. Between all living things. I knew that there was mysteries that I was never gonna understand.
That, that were essentially come from stars and stardust. And that this is and I'm a part of that. I'm a part of that right here, right now. And... That was a message that I had never received from any place before. you get a little bit of that when you're growing up somewhat. But, I was not raised in church.
I didn't have any religion in my family. My mom was a gardener, and so I had some connection to plants. But you know I was really like a lot of people in our modern culture is really disconnected from nature and one of the first things I did when I got turned on to weed was go [00:50:00] camping And be outside more where you know in the 1980s like I said it was dangerous So we I used to have to hike into the woods just to smoke a joint you know I get away from everybody or meet my friends like In the middle of the forest.
There'd be like these patches of forest in between subdivisions in the suburbs. In those days. Now they're just all subdivisions. But in those days there wasn't fully developed yet. And so you could walk into these woods and there'd be nobody there. And and you wouldn't get caught smoking weed.
And of course you'd spray yourself with all these different sprays and So you wouldn't smell like wheat when you walk back home. But and so going out into the nature and being in the nature and taking cannabis and getting the psychoactivity from the cannabis while I'm sitting in the woods with friends or even by myself, it brought me more in touch with.
The trees, and [00:51:00] the nature, and the leaves on the ground, and the sun coming through, and the creek, and the water. I could hear things, and, I noticed things. And and it brought me closer to the universe, the life force of the universe. And and now that I've been with cannabis for so long, it's almost an automatic process.
But... I still approach with a lot of reverence and and use cannabis ceremoniously. And it accompanies me everywhere. And and, pretty much through, through all the important things in life, right? It's been a great friend and teacher to me and so have other master plants both psychoactive and non psychoactive.
I just ate a wonderful salad out of my garden yesterday and it was... It was a spiritual experience. It was, you know, I mean, yeah, it was a yummy spiritual [00:52:00] experience. It was like, oh, I grew this my own hands and these plants cooperated with me. And oh my God, I can't believe it actually happened.
And I'm not like a great gardener by any stretch of the imagination. I kill as much as I thrive, but But it's just, it's this little miracle that happens, every time and and those plants speak to me, when I eat them they, they speak to me and I feel that they, the master plants have master souls, but my little lettuce plant has a soul too, and and and ultimately, we will go back to the plants.
When I pass away, I'm going to be composted in the ground, and I will go back to the plants. And the plants will get to be fed by me as I am being fed by the plants. So this is what I've learned.
Lana Pribic: I'm curious what your thoughts are on the teaching style of cannabis, because I find that every master plant teacher has a different [00:53:00] style. So for example, Iboga is this very direct, clear teaching style. Ayahuasca is this very like, Loving, sometimes confusing teaching style, but she teaches through love and connection to nature, right?
Mushrooms can be like spacey and windy. Yeah, what are your thoughts on the kind of teaching style of the cannabis plant?
That's a great
Lana Pribic: it's a weird question.
Andrew DeAngelo: No, it's a great question. I love that question. No one's asked me that question before, and I, I think it's uh, people should steal that question from you, because it's, it's an excellent question. I it, One of the first things that happened to me when I first started taking cannabis happens to a lot of people, assuming you have a connection, some people's first experiences are overwhelming and perhaps not. as euphoric as mine was. But, when one, it's a euphoric, it's a [00:54:00] euphoric communication.
It's also a humorous sense of humor. Cannabis has a real sense of humor. I remember one of the first times I was stoned, I made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. And because I was hungry. And it was a pretty hilarious experience to make this peanut butter and jelly sandwich. It was hilarious. Now I don't laugh like that when I'm stoned and I make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, but at that time in my bell curve with the cannabis plant, I did.
And and so I think a sense of humor. I think cannabis also is very honest. When I've been off my game, and I've behaved in ways that were not true to myself, or not as respectful of myself, Cannabis has told me that, Cannabis has told me when I've been taking too much cannabis.
Heh. I mean, It's always, [00:55:00] it's very honest teacher with a sense of humor that likes to make you feel good. Likes to make you feel, not just feel good but feel I lost my parents five, six, seven years ago. And sometimes I'll take cannabis and I'll remember them and I'll be very moved.
I'll be moved to tears because it's making me feel that. It's making me in touch with my parents. It's it's giving me a connection to them. And it's not always a sadness. It's sometimes it's a... It's a appreciation. It's being moved. It's not being sad. Or it's an extension of just the grieving process, right?
That goes on and on forever. It wanted me to feel, I didn't smoke a joint saying, okay I'm gonna go visit mom now. I just, I was like smoking a joint at 4 o'clock one afternoon and and all of a sudden, the medicine comes in and [00:56:00] I start to think of my mom or memory of my mother and I start to really get in touch with her and I get moved by that experience.
Without the plant, I might not have even thought of my mother. At that particular occasion, right? And it likes to make you feel things. When I had that experience with my mother, there was a teaching in that. It might have been a little kind of teaching but there was a teaching in there.
And the teaching might have been, it's okay, mom's alive in your heart, and you can have these moments. And They enrich my life, right? And that was the little lesson for that particular moment. And it used a feeling to express that lesson. You gotta be listening to cannabis.
Ha. You gotta be listening because she doesn't deliver her news with the same force that perhaps psilocybin or ayahuasca or whatever. I [00:57:00] began but but, very powerful plant, cannabis and, I've voiced mindfulness for not overdosing yourself on cannabis.
You will feel the power of cannabis if you do that. You'll feel the power of the plant and, with great power, commands great respect and reverence and if you don't. You'll learn the hard way . And and, it's sometimes that's a lesson in and of itself.
And we're human beings. We're highly fallible, very fallible. And we learn most of our lessons the hard way. And and so that's the kind of spirit I would say that cannabis has. It's like a crystal. It has a bunch of different sides to it. And it definitely requires a good ear.
And it's a very, internal teacher. It brings you inward. It also makes things outside of you pleasant and [00:58:00] beautiful.
Lana Pribic: Music?
Andrew DeAngelo: Like music, right?
Lana Pribic: I saw your series on Instagram with the records. Yeah. One of my favorite ways to enjoy cannabis is if I don't have any plans on the weekend, I'll just smoke by myself and, yeah, listen to music and it is
Andrew DeAngelo: yeah.
Lana Pribic: experience ever every time. Yeah.
Andrew DeAngelo: Yeah, and I and, it's enriching our lives, right?
Lana Pribic: Oh, so much.
Andrew DeAngelo: yeah, that's what art does, and I think that's, the merging, the integration of art and cannabis and master plants do that even
Lana Pribic: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, I had well, I just had my podcast cover artwork created by this amazing artist and she was like, yeah I'm doing this well stoned and I was like, I fully support that.
Andrew DeAngelo: yeah.
Lana Pribic: thank you for explaining your understanding of the teaching style, because that really. Resonated with me.
There [00:59:00] is this humor, this lightness in her teaching style, but there is also this great emphasis on feeling things so deeply and feeling things in a way that normally you don't and then through the intensity of that feeling is an opportunity to learn about it. So I love that. And which is why I find it actually very useful for integrating psychedelic experiences, like after an ayahuasca ceremony or something If some time has passed, some cannabis really helps deepen those insights.
Have you had a similar experience?
Andrew DeAngelo: I have not had my first ayahuasca sitting yet but I definitely use cannabis throughout my psychedelic experiences and certainly as an integrator, integration
Lana Pribic: Yeah.
Andrew DeAngelo: of it. I find for me a smoke really helps ritualize. The trip, and and I'll often give me a [01:00:00] settle me down a little bit during the trip.
But but yeah, I think that look, integration is a really important part of all this and it's an easy thing to overlook. I've overlooked it. Because we live in this modern world and it's consume the thing, do the thing, move on, and and integrating, just integrating your college education is hard enough, let alone, these psych, these psychedelic experiences.
And it's and, it's oh yeah, I got that, great, alright, moving on. And. It really helps to, you'll get, we, I've gotten a lot more out of my experiences when I've spent a little time with integration, journaling about the experience, seeing where my intention is now that I set for that experience what my notes right after the experience are now two or three months later, these are.
If you can be that disciplined, and sometimes it helps to have someone help you with that a [01:01:00] professional or even someone that you're close to. Because it's a part of this that is easy to overlook and not pay attention to. I know I've certainly have in the past.
Lana Pribic: Yeah.
Andrew DeAngelo: and I know, gosh, I had a psilocybin experience in 1990, I think it was, at a rainbow gathering in Minnesota that I am still unpacking. Okay. I'm, I am still integrating that experience. I still go back to that experience sometimes. And and spend a little time thinking about the integration of that.
Those really memorable ones will, or really intense ones in, in, in that particular case it was a very intense trip they stay with you and one way or the other and to, to you. Mindfully integrate a little bit is a good practice.
Lana Pribic: I think [01:02:00] that means you're probably doing integration properly if you're still integrating it. Because there really is so much we can pull from a single experience.
Andrew DeAngelo: Yeah.
Lana Pribic: Yeah, we're getting to the end of our time here. I can't believe it. This conversation has flown by. We didn't even get to the policy and regulation and all the other things.
Maybe we will have to have you back sometime to go over all that stuff. But I'm so enjoying this conversation. I have one more question that I really want to ask you as a certified OG stoner that you are. So my thing with cannabis is I freaking love it so much. The one thing that, ah, it just makes it.
a not enjoyable experience for me is that feeling of grogginess the next day. And I find I really have to like only consume cannabis on a Friday or Saturday where I don't have work the next day. So I'm sure you have, dealt with [01:03:00] this yourself. What words of wisdom do you offer people? And for me to, is there a way to avoid that feeling?
Andrew DeAngelo: That's a really good question. Practice makes perfect. Heheheheh. Look, you develop tolerance over time and if your professional life does not allow for you to consume more regularly, because that's what it takes to eliminate that grogginess. In my experience, and most of the people I know you reach a point where that doesn't happen anymore.
At least that was my experience. Particularly what happened with me when I was very young, I was just starting. Yeah, I would even just smoke and weed the night before. I'd be groggy the next day. But then college happened. And, I smoked enough weed in college that I was able to get, I didn't have grogginess the next day from cannabis.
I went from alcohol consumption, of course, but not from [01:04:00] cannabis. And then when I started doing edibles more as I got a little older then I had the grogginess again from the edibles. It's oh man, I got an edible, I got an edible hangover. And, but then then I was able to move through that and now it doesn't happen to me anymore.
Really. But look, you're doing the right thing. Make the necessary adjustments. You may during the day or at certain times. And but know yourself, like I said in the, in, in the beginning and know why. And so it's good that you know that about yourself and that you're being a responsible donor, Lana.
And yeah, it's,
Lana Pribic: 'cause I work with clients one-on-one, so I really have to make sure that I'm, showing up for them.
Andrew DeAngelo: of course. Yeah, of course. Of course. Yeah, of course.
Lana Pribic: But maybe one day I'll be a certified stoner like you and no longer have [01:05:00] grogginess to deal with
Andrew DeAngelo: Yeah, I'm a little further along in my stoner career. But yeah, I look when I was. I've had different periods in my life. There were periods in my life where I was playing a big part in a Shakespeare play or something. I'd stop smoking weed. For, for a while. For weeks and weeks.
And, so there have been periods in my life where for one reason or another it's hard to play Hamlet um, and know all your lines. Um, uh, you know. So, It's situational, right? I, I've, what I do for a living you, my, my body has adapted to the cannabis I take every day but, not everybody's in the same place.
And and. I'll just say, I'll just end by saying, there's this great book, Don Quixote by Carlos Castaneda, the Don Quixote series, and the very first book, I forget the title of it. But there's this [01:06:00] exercise that Don Quixote gives the student and that is find your spot on this porch.
It was a porch and that's all he said was just find your spot and he left him alone. And it took him like three days of going around all these different spots on the porch. And then when he was so exhausted that and he couldn't stand it anymore. He just collapsed, and that was the spot. Ha.
And, so we have to find our spots. And and it sounds like your spot is Friday nights. It is party time. And and and ceremony time and, ritual time, and all the things we've discussed today, and um, and, You know,
Lana Pribic: food time.
Andrew DeAngelo: yeah, and that's great and it's I think you know Being a responsible stoner is really important.
For a happy healthy life. Oh, yeah.
Lana Pribic: totally. Yeah, I a big raver as well. It's how I got into [01:07:00] psychedelics and I'm a huge proponent of raving responsibly and harm reduction and all of
Andrew DeAngelo: Yeah dance safe
Lana Pribic: yeah, I've had them on the show. Yeah, they're
Andrew DeAngelo: Yeah, oh, yeah, they're very great. And what's the one that maps does? the
Oh, it begins with a Z. ? They do a similar thing at Burning Man every year.
Lana Pribic: I would have killed to be at one of those 90s raves with you. If I could go back in time.
Andrew DeAngelo: Yeah, the rave scene's changed a lot, but It's still pretty cool. Still pretty
Lana Pribic: Yeah. I really do seek out the underground ones here in Toronto, and they're a little more similar to how they used to do it back in the day. I've heard from the older folks, so there's still, you got to look for it.
Andrew DeAngelo: yeah I yeah, I belong to a rave group. We do it that way too. Yeah.
Lana Pribic: Yes, I love it. Andrew, this has been so fun and amazing. My cheeks hurt from smiling and listening to you talk.
Andrew DeAngelo: I've been smiling a lot too. [01:08:00] Awesome.
Lana Pribic: So fun. Yeah, maybe we can follow up and do another episode sometime on the other side that we didn't touch on. This has been the longest interview I've recorded in a
Andrew DeAngelo: Oh, okay. Yeah, I'd love to come back. The policy stuff is not as much fun to talk about. But but important that we, we share our we share notes on that.
Lana Pribic: Yeah. Can you tell people before we let you go, just, you have some really exciting projects that you're working on, like the Last Prisoners project. Can you tell us what you have going on and what they can look forward to from you?
Andrew DeAngelo: Sure, yeah. Last Prisoner project nonprofit I co-founded. We, our mission is to free cannabis prisoners. Now that cannabis is getting legal just about everywhere um, that you can go to last prisoner project.org um, and go to our get active tab. You can plug in if you're a company, you can plug in if you're an individual, you don't have to have any money , you can write letters to prisoners, we teach you how to do that on the website[01:09:00] so there's lots of ways to contribute to Last Prisoner Project.
And then... I love to build things with entrepreneurs. Like I said in the beginning, you can go to my website, andrewdangelo. com. I have a little consulting co op. You'll see some other great leaders and talented people that I work with, and work with me, and serve our clients together with.
And that's andrewdangelo. com. And... Do a lot of podcasts. And I usually I usually have them on, I'm all over social media. Andrew under slash D'Angelo is my X handle and my ID handle and LinkedIn. It's just Andrew D'Angelo. I'm pretty easy guy to get ahold of.
If anything we've talked about sounds interesting enough to get ahold of me, please reach out.
Lana Pribic: Amazing. Amazing. Thank you for the work that you're doing and for just consistently showing up doing podcasts, spreading the word and yeah, just all the things you've got going on. We appreciate you and thanks for spending time with us today.
Andrew DeAngelo: [01:10:00] Thanks a lot, Lana. I had a great time.
Lana Pribic: All right. Take care.
