Of Giving Tree Dispensaries, Lilach Power gives us an on-the-ground account of the Arizona cannabis economy.  She shares how Giving Tree has grown along with the medical program and discusses future growth to that end. Lilach is kind enough to take us through her military service as she grew up in Israel and every Israeli citizen must serve. She’s brought her laid back Israeli approach to the Copper State.
But first, Oscar Velasco Schmitz has a lot to share about the state of affairs in the State Washington which is great as that’s precisely what we’ve asked him to do. He looks to put a silver lining around the news coming out of the  Evergreen State.
Oscar Velasco-Schmitz followed by Lilach Power.

Transcript:

Speaker 2: Lilac power of giving tree dispensary's Lilac power gives us an on the ground account of the Arizona cannabis economy. She shares how giving tree has grown along with the medical program and discusses future growth to that end. Why? Like is kind enough to take us through her military service as you grew up in Israel, every Israeli citizen must serve. She's brought her laid back Israeli approach as you'll hear to the copper state. But first Oscar Velazco Schmidt says a lot to share about the state of affairs in the state of Washington, which is great, and that's precisely what we've asked him to do. He looks to put a silver lining around the news coming out of the evergreen state. Welcome to cannabis economy. I'm your host Seth Adler. Check us out on social with the handle can economy. That's two ends. And the word economy, Oscar Velazco. Schmidt's followed by my lack power. Okay. All right.

Speaker 1: So Oscar Valasco Schmidt's, uh, one of the most involved names in cannabis. And I mean that based on your advocacy work, as well as the fact that there are so many syllables, quite a few. So, um, you know, you're, you're one of the guys that's been operating in, uh, in Washington state for a while. So I kind of wanted to get your sense of, of what was going on because I know from you that I'm some good, it's happened, some bad has happened and a whole lot of in between. So, um, just give us a sense of what your operation was prior to July first and now what your operation is following July first. And then I'll go ahead and follow up with some questions. How about that? Sure, that sounds great. So, um,

Speaker 3: so prior to July, first the medical, uh, the medical market was being served by a, by collective garden access points and, uh, these access points where essentially a place where a patient could come in for cure their medical cannabis from their collective garden or from a collective garden that they were a contributing their resources to capital being one of those resources. Uh, the law, uh, that went into effect 50 slash 52 and House bill 2136. I'm essentially changed the definition of what a collective garden was, which no longer provided for, uh, for the statute that, that allowed for the collective gardens to exist. And um, and again, this is under policy. This is medical cannabis, a commerce under policy, not a, not state liquor and cannabis board regulation. Uh, so what it effectively did was it closed down an entire market that had been in existence for over five, just over five years.

Speaker 3: Um, and uh, what comes of this, right? Markets shift a one provider changes. It's either the same good or a similar good, uh, but in this case it was a similar good, not the same good, because they're separate supply chains. So the medical cannabis, uh, the medical cannabis supply chain, again, was through collective gardens and since those gardens closed that, that chain essentially stopped existing. What does this mean? Well, it means a number of things on a, on a number of different levels for, uh, for the supply side of medical cannabis. That production just stopped, as I said, nobody. Well, very few people, I guess maybe there are still people operating under under collective garden, a commerce, but, but the risk would be too high I would say for, for the average, for the average business person to go into a simply because there is no shield, there is no statutory shield a or I would find it a very difficult one to, uh, to come to a way where if you're conducting commerce with collective garden that you would be allowed to anyway.

Speaker 3: So productive before. So supply chain production, uh, that essentially has stopped completely. And from that, since the supply is coming through, what does that mean? It means that if you were a, if you're a, an access point, a retailer, you have no more product to be able to provide your market. So it doesn't make any sense to stay in business, which was a, an, and also there was enforcement specifically in the city of Seattle. Uh, the office of financial administration. I think I may be getting that acronym wrong. Far Fas, financial and administrative services. I bigger part was the office. Uh, did a round of enforcement and around, of, uh, of, of reaching out to businesses that were in existence, uh, without a state license that we're operating as collective garden access points and essentially saying, Hey, well, well, I essentially, they would literally say this, but you know, we're going to come and work.

Speaker 3: We're going to come in, bust you essentially if you're open after July one, uh, we decided to close and we actually made our anniversary, uh, the Solstice, June 21st, uh, well before the 31st deadline. I'm sorry. Uh, yeah, June 21st. Not a natural lifers, right? So anyway, what is left. Okay. Uh, and again, what are the ramifications for supply side for the retailers? Now let's talk about the consumers. What happens to the consumer? So the consumer's, uh, for the last, at least five years had been trained into a paradigm of commerce that was this access point or these access points throughout Washington state, specifically in Seattle. So they're used to a specific product you used to a specific experience environment, so on and so forth. So it's a massive shift for the consumer of medical cannabis in, uh, in Washington state. They no longer have this thing that they relied on, that they trust that was, uh, that was, you know, I don't want to make any claims by any stretch, but a lot of people claimed that they were, uh, they were effective for whatever condition they were, uh, they were helping to, uh, to treat or to have some kind of effect on.

Speaker 3: And uh, okay. So now where's the consumer left? Well, the consumer is left with now a paradigm in, under, uh, under the state regulations and those are the recreational stores and potentially some with medical endorsements. Looking to hear some of the challenges to that. Are they the same products or comparable products that are being provided to the consumer on the recreational side? In some cases, yes, I would say half if not most of the cases. No. And you have to look at the big picture. Really, the, the trust that gets into the, the, the, the, the products that were, uh, that were actually being used. No, they're not the same unless that producer in the medical market transition to a state regulated production, a paradigm. If that's the case, and if they decided to port over their production methodologies, their product lines, then yes, the consumer was able to get the same products.

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