"Advocating for Access and Regulation in the Miracle Plant Industry"
Justin Benton and attorney Patrick Goggins discuss various topics related to hemp, cannabis, and related legislation. They touch on issues like the Farm Bill, the FDA's approach to regulating CBD, the potential rescheduling of cannabis, and the importance of fighting for access to the miracle plant. The conversation also delves into THC caps on hemp products and the need for clear regulations in the industry. They end the episode with a tribute to Tony Bennett with Miracle Plant advocate Willie Nelson.
Justin Benton - https://podconx.com/guests/justin-benton
https://www.audible.com/pd/B01MRJZCGD?source_code=ASSORAP0511160006&share_location=library_overflow
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[00:00:00] They rarely happen if maybe this will be the, the first actual substantive hearing in a congressional committee that we've ever had. All, all discussions in Congress have been on the floor. It's a wasting time. We all know it already. All the evidence is already out there. It's a distraction. It's, it's, it's more foot dragging.
Welcome to the Miracle Plant Podcast, the show that inspires, promotes and gives you a daily dose of inspiration from the people who have used cannabis to change their lives in extraordinary ways. Here's your host, Justin Benton.[00:01:00]
Welcome back to the Miracle Plant Podcast, where we discussed this miracle plant with so many names. And how it's helping people in so many extraordinary ways. Well, guess what? We're having a repeat return guest. He's probably been on more than anybody that we've had on the Miracle Plan Podcast. We're gonna have to get him one of those leisure smoking jackets like they give out there at the Saturday Night Live like.
Steve Martin and all those kinds of things. It's Patrick Goggin, the World Extraordinaire Hemp and cannabis attorney. He's joining us back here on the Miracle Plant Podcast. We're so honored and blessed to have him share his expertise and knowledge about what's going on with this miracle plant. Patrick, welcome to the Miracle Plant Podcast.
How you doing? I'm doing great, Justin. You're far too kind. Thanks for having me. Again, I really appreciate being here. Well, we're just so excited to have you back and I was sitting here thinking like, you know what? You and I have these conversations all the time. We should probably just hit record, put it out on a podcast, and, uh, I don't have to get charged $420 an hour, and, [00:02:00] and the audience here doesn't either.
So it's a freebie for everybody. You're gonna get to learn from the person that knows more about hemp and cannabis than anybody walking this. Planet. He's a specialist here in California, but works in all the different states, but we met many, many years ago. He's helped out, uh, 1 0 1 cbd, 1 0 1 Hemp and the Miracle Plant with so many, uh, different things over the years.
So I'm just so excited for you to be able to share your wisdom and knowledge, and you wanna talk about getting it from the horse's mouth folks. This is the horse. So with that, Patrick, let's, uh, get started a little bit about the farm Bill, uh, in 2018. For those that don't know, the farm bill is what passed.
It made it very, very clear and simple that, uh, removed hemp from the, uh, schedule, which made it, uh, uh, available for all farmers federally to go ahead and grow and use, uh, you know, C B D. And now we have another farm bill coming up. And what do you think is gonna happen in this farm, bill Patrick? Well, First we need to see it drop, which is, you know, be introduced.
And [00:03:00] I'm hearing that that may happen in the next. 30 to 60 days, but you never know at this Congress as it as it is and divided and, and, um, not sure what it can tackle. But I do hear that this is a, you know, that this is one of the few bipartisan issues that, that they may agree on. So, hey, it could become, uh, the, the, the golden legislation of the year.
Um, But what, what I'm looking for, I think what we're talking about I are, are several things primarily, uh, number one is do does the definition of hemp remain at less than 0.3% delta nine, T h c? And that's important in two respects. Number one. As far as farming goes, it's very hard to keep the, the, the flowering parts of the plant at less than 0.3%.
And so there's [00:04:00] been a real strong campaign over the years since 2018 and even prior to boost that percentage up to 1%, that was what, uh, Jack Herer, who wrote The Emperor Wears No Clothes. Um, Argued and that, and that, in fact, t h c, he, this is his quote, T h c is a sunscreen for the plant. So let's bring back a little bit more sunscreen for the plant and protect him from the, from the UV rays.
The other piece that I mentioned is that it defines, uh, hemp as, as less than 0.3% delta nine thc. Well, there are a number of other, uh, Types of T h C. There's Delta eight, there's Delta 10, there's H H C. They just recently discovered T H C P. These are minor cannabinoids that that show up and are present in very small amounts [00:05:00] in the plant, but many folks are, are able to, and, and, and interestingly, the science is very interesting here.
The, the chemistry folks are converting C B, D isolate into these other cannabinoids that. Become, quote unquote, chemically synthesized and create these intoxicating products that tend to get around the marijuana laws. And it'll be interesting to see if they take the Delta nine THC and expand it to just all THCs and, and we'll see if that happens.
I'm not so sure it'll happen. Uh, I thought that it was, was likely to happen, but the, but the lobby for these products around the country is very strong, so. It, it, it'll, it's a mystery and, and I'm, I'm keeping a close eye on it. Well, and, and this kind of leads me to my next question is, um, you know, Joe Biden's been on the record saying that he's in support of rescheduling cannabis on [00:06:00] a federal level to a schedule two.
Uh, whereas, you know, Jack Rare and, and you know, all of the Doug fines and, you know, everybody that's been around forever, you know, yourself included, would much rather, and myself included, would much rather have them deschedule uh, cannabis off of the schedule completely. Can you explain a little bit about what you, what, what I just said so people understand and what do you think will happen?
Yeah. So really good questions. Um, So when you're on the schedule, meaning on the, on the Controlled Substances Act, um, list, schedule list means that it's a controlled substance drug that only folks registered with the D e A. Pharmaceutical companies, [00:07:00] um, can, uh, create these, these drugs, otherwise it's contraband.
Um, currently marijuana's on the schedule as schedule one, the most, supposedly, the most, um, harmful for humans and. If it gets rescheduled down to schedule two, it, it's basically saying that, that there is, um, at, at schedule one, there is no, no medical. Use or benefit, and it has a high potential for abuse.
If it gets moved down to schedule two. It's saying that there is some medical benefit and that drug companies can come out with products and and so forth. Although actually we, we have, um, uh, already under schedule one, we have, what is it, [00:08:00] Marinol? Um, That is being produced, but I think it by, by going to schedule two, it will allow for, uh, greater, greater uses and, and to treat greater, uh, more conditions.
I think Marinol might be limited in, in the conditions that, that it treats. If, if it's descheduled, that means that it is determined. Um, Not to have a, a, a great potential for abuse and that it's regulated like alcohol basically. Um, which it ought to be. I mean, we know, we all know the damage that alcohol.
Causes an individual a family can. Cause I'm not saying in all cases by any means, it's, it's, it can be used medicinally and socially and it, it has been for, for millennia. Um, but, [00:09:00] but when we, when, when we, as a society moved over to distilling liquor, it, it, it. It changed things for all time, and that's what led to prohibition.
But ultimately prohibition ended and it, all the prohibitions on alcohol were taken away. And it was reg, it's reg regulated today by the alcohol, tobacco, and firearm arms, um, uh, department and the federal government. And we, we, we would think that that cannabis marijuana would, would go the same way, but it, it won't if.
They keep it at a schedule too. Yeah. It's funny that you say that like, you know, alcohol is not on the schedule and obviously here in the Miracle Plant Podcast we talk about this miracle plant and how it helps people with, you know, a myriad of things that helps your body find homeostasis and balance, which can help your body heal itself, you know, your immune system as what it's designed to do.
So that's an interesting, [00:10:00] uh, comparison. You know, the other thing that I'm. You know, we're talking about Congress and schedules and all this kinds of things. You know, uh, there's a, a congress pot because what happened was the FDA said, Hey, we can't, we're not set up, or we can't, or we don't want to, or someone whispered on our ear, we shouldn't, um, you know, have a legal pathway, clear pathway for, uh, regulating cbd.
So they kicked it back to conference. Is this the most efficient, you know, place where you say anything when you can't get something done? And so anyways, it's in Congress's, uh, lap to figure out a way to regulate C B D. And so now there's a potential c b d hearing, uh, coming up. What can you tell us about that?
I know it kind of just happened very, very recently. What do you think the likelihood of, of something happening and actually, you know, something concrete coming from that is, well, I mean, we've been looking at the ping. Pong match between Congress and F D A. Go on and on and on. For the past five years, since the 2018 Farm [00:11:00] Bill was passed, Congress made it very clear that F FDA had authority to regulate C B D and to regulate hemp Generally, the farm bill took it out of the hands of the dea, so it's incumbent upon the FDA to act and it has.
Done nothing but refuse to act. It has held hearings. It has taken in all kinds of evidence regarding the safety of C B D, and yet at the end of the day, after all of that, they continue to say, I. We don't, we still don't, are not convinced on the, on the safety of C B D, and we don't have the mechanisms with which to regulate it, and therefore it's up to Congress to tell us what to do.
Well, I'm sorry, but FDA needs to grow up and to use its gray matter and figure [00:12:00] it out because Congress handed it. And delegated the authority to the FDA a to deal with it. And it's its job, it's refusal the agency's refusal to regulate C B D as it's been directed to really provides substantial evidence that the F d A is driven and run by the pharmaceutical companies and that they, and, and, and they're trying to protect.
Epidiolex and, and the C b d, uh, medicines that are out there by refusing to pass reasonable regulations to allow for C B D as a food and a dietary supplement as Congress intended. And its failure to do so in my mind is criminal conspiracy. You're preaching to the choir, brother. Preach. Preach. Um, you know, I [00:13:00] say the same things and, and I just love hearing it from an expert like you as well, that, uh, you know, obviously there's an incestuous relationship with big pharma and the F D A and um, All we're asking for is just give us a, a clear pathway so people can feel confident and safe.
You know, I'm, I'm working with different doctor organizations and you know, you and I, you know, work internationally as well, but even here in the United States, doctors are coming to these publications and these journals and they're saying, we need help. We do not know what we're supposed to say. We're seeing people that are coming into our office telling us, That C B D is working and that it's helping them and they don't know.
They, their clients, their patients are, are more educated about this plant than they are because they didn't get taught this in medical school. So they're actually losing clients. Because no one has taught them about any of this. And, and, and [00:14:00] part of the reason that it isn't being taught is because, you know, there's a certain way things are done with the FDA regulations and everything like that.
And now that we've had a legal clear definition of hemp for five years, We are sitting here, uh, five years later it's been passed back to Congress and there are people out there that are going to their doctors with telling them that it's working and the doctor doesn't know. So we've had doctors that are reaching out and saying, look, at this point, we know that this plant does no harm.
We just don't know where we're supposed to send people. What, what, what are we, where are we supposed to tell people to go get hemp and C B D? And, uh, you know, that's because the FDA has drugged their feet. Because they've, you know, in my opinion, because, you know, they've basically been told to drug, you know, drag their feet and we're, we're not, it's not in the best interest of the health of the citizens in the United States that, that people have clear.
And simple [00:15:00] access and guidelines to go find this. That doctors, when people are sick, whether it's pain or stress or sleep or another health issue, the doctors don't know what to do. And so, um, I I, I know we've made a ton of progress and you've been fighting this fight for decades and, you know, I, I, I wanna stay positive, but.
Just so you know, there is real harm happening because certain people will only listen to what the doctor will tell them to do, and the doctors dunno what to tell them to do when it comes to this plan. Well, fortunately Justin, we live in a Federalist system and you know, the, the, our founding fathers were brilliant and they knew that.
The way they designed the government with the federal government and the states, that the states would be the entities or where experiments would occur and [00:16:00] where advances would be made and new policies would be tried. It's almost like the Petri dish and there's, so it allows for, um, Advan, uh, you new ways of approaching problems that might be more beneficial to its citizens.
And in this case, uh, the states have taken it upon themselves in the face of the Calcitrant FDA and have regulated cbd. So actually, in spite of FDA's foot dragging, I. It's regulated in 49 states. The only state that it's really not allowed in is, is Washington of all places, Washington State, which is strange, but it, it is what it is.
Um, and, and so consumers are being protected because the states [00:17:00] have, have passed regulations to, to protect them and eventually, Fda, the FDA will have no choice but to come around. Um, and as far as this hearing goes, and these hearings go in Congress, they're great. It's, it's actually great that we're actually, that we're having hearings in Congress on hemp.
They rarely happen. If maybe this will be the, the, the first actual substantive hearing in a congressional committee that we've ever had. All, all, all. Discussions in Congress have been on the floor. Um, it's a waste of fucking time. We all know it already. All the evidence is already out there. It's a distraction.
It's, it's, it's more foot dragging.
You and I both know what's going on [00:18:00] and, and that's why I love that we're sharing this with the audience, just so you know what is actually. Going on, you know, and, and, and you know, I see this every day. You've seen this every day. This plant helps people. It does no harm. It should not be scheduled. People should have access to it as they did.
George, you will talk about founding fathers. George Washington grew hemp. Thomas Jefferson said, point blank, this is a hemp is a matter of national security. Every farmer was required. By law and colonial days to grow at least an acre of hemp because of its many, many uses. And because, you know, what we've seen with, with, you know, Paige and, and, and Charlie Figgy and, and, and how it was so, you know, undeniable that this plant would reduce or eliminate seizures.
Dr. Raphael Machu had studies in the 1970s showing how clearly that this plant can, if we're just talking about seizures, That this plant, which has no proven side effects, [00:19:00] uh, it is because it's a plant, not a drug, uh, reduces seizures. And that's why it was so undeniable that this plant became legal as it always should have been.
But we're gonna keep fighting the good fight. And, and, and I absolutely. You know, all that you've done to help, brother. Yeah. No, I mean, and this extends out to. Psychedelics and, and the other plant medicines out there. It's, you know, the, the, the war on drugs and, and the, uh, controlled Substances Act and the frenzy that was instigated by the Nixon administration has done tremendous harm.
We have, we have all these medicines that we know about that, uh, that help, um, psychologically and, and in fact, here's an interesting piece here. Through it all, through all of [00:20:00] the Controlled Substances Act and through ultimately taking out M D M A. After it was being used as, as a party drug around around the country.
All the while they've take, they took out psilocybin, they took out L S D, they took out M D M A, they took out, uh, prob, I D M T. Uh, I, maybe I, and probably ayahuasca, although there's religious, um, exceptions. Ketamine. Ketamine has remained legal. And, uh, for use in the clinical setting to, to pre to treat major depression and its efficacy rate is around 80 to 85%.
And, and I've, and I know because I've looked into it and I have family members that suffer from this condition. Uh, uh, uh, Senator Fetterman. Has suffered from [00:21:00] this condition. Um, there are other treatments, so, uh, one called, um, I think it's C T E and it, it's ba what we know to be, um, uh, shock. Shock Treatment.
Um, it's, it's where the, it's a medical procedure that goes in and, and creates these minor seizures in the brain to, that has an 80 to 85% efficacy rate on major depression. I was talking to my brother, who's a doctor. He said, ketamine has about the same efficacy, so why did ketamine stay lawful and all these other substances didn't?
Well, we all know the answer to that, or at least you and I do follow the money.
It's sad but true. And, you know, and, and that's, uh, and, and we're not telling, you know, you anything you haven't heard before listening to this podcast, but we are clarifying [00:22:00] what is going on, uh, in our country. And we're just talking about the United States. And I've said it before and I'll say it again.
There are only two countries in the world. That will allow you to advertise on television for paid ads to sell pharmaceutical drugs. It's the United States and it's New Zealand, so all 200 other countries will not allow this to happen. That therein lies the problem. I know we've gone down that rabbit hole a few more times, and I want to be respectful of our, of our guests time.
But before we, we head out, Patrick, any final words, and of course I want, I want you to tell people where they can find you and where they should reach out if they have more questions about hemp. Or their, their businesses or how you might help them. I know you help with labels and hemp and cannabis and California and everything, and you are the expert or maybe have have you on their podcast as well.
Where can they find you, brother, and what's your, your final, uh, thoughts for the, for the show? Well, they can always find me [00:23:00] at p d goggin law gmail.com. It's P D G O G G I N law gmail.com. Just email me there. I, uh, I've been practicing for 27 years or so. I am, uh, a qualified generalist and specialist in, in hemp and cannabis.
I litigate, I facilitate, I mediate. I'm a problem solver, so if you, you've got problems out there, uh, reach out to me and if I can't help you resolve it, I'll find somebody who can. But right now, actually here in the Golden State, we've got a little battle on our hands. Um, There is legislation that's, uh, moving through the capital.
It's called AB four 20. Yes. Yes, I did. I I said that right. I got that number right. Four 20. [00:24:00] It's supposedly a hemp clarification bill that is going in and clarifying the, uh, He manufacturing act that we passed in, in 2021, AB 45 was the name of that legislation. And in the midst of trying to clean it up, they, um, Aguiar, uh, Curry, who is the author of the bill, is working with the sponsor of the bill in the private sector, which is C C I A, the California Cannabis.
Uh, What is it? Cannabis Industries Association and they are trying to impose A T H C cap on all hemp products, and it will be small, it will be restrictive, and it will have a great negative impact on. Full spectrum and broad spectrum hemp products, and it needs to be fought, it needs to [00:25:00] be opposed. So reach out to, uh, assembly member Aguiar Curry and let her know that you oppose that bill if they include a T H C milligram cap.
It couldn't be more important. It's probably one of the, the, the, um, what I would say is the most important actions you could take right now in the state of California. I appreciate it, Justin. I really appreciate being here again with you. We gotta go get a catch a round sometime soon. Yeah, it's been too long.
Golf, and, and, and I, and I wanna, and I just wanna, um, Thank all of the listeners out there for, for your support. Absolutely. And, and you know, we'll get that golf round in and, uh, like you said, we talked about earlier, we might have to get the band back together at the California Hemp Council if we need to fight AB four 20.
So check out, uh, Google, California Hemp Council and you'll find us, uh, we can use your support if we have to. [00:26:00] Again, all we want is access to this miracle plant that people. That, that, that are, that are sick or people that have a a diagnosis are people that just have everyday aches and pains, stress or sleep issues that can have access to a plant, an organically grown plant, uh, in its whole form.
We're obviously about the raw form here. Just have access to it and not be confused about it and not be scared by it, and not be given misinformation about it. So thank you so much, Patrick for joining us at the Miracle Plant Podcast. At the end of every podcast, we say heal the world. So that's the mission here to reach a billion people by 2025.
So even if you're listening right now at home or in your car, or at the gym, or wherever you are, join us in this. On the count of three, we're gonna say heal the world and get out there and do it. So on the count of three, here we go. 1, 2, 3. Heal the world. All right, thanks everybody for Swinging by the Miracle Plan Podcast.
Here's a little outro [00:27:00] music for you to the incomparable Tony Bennett, who recently passed away at 96. My, uh, grandpa. Dick Benton, I had a, a jazz trio band, the Dick Benton Trio with my dad and on drums, and my uncle, uh, Doug on bass. And, uh, my grandpa was on piano and vocals. And so I grew up my whole life listening to Tony and, uh, Frank Sinatra and all the classic crooners out there.
And, uh, I found a really cool duet with Tony. Bennett and Willie Nelson, who is, uh, a huge, uh, miracle plant advocate over the years. So, uh, sit back, relax, listen to, uh, Tony and Willie.
Grab your coat, grab your hat, leave your worries on the doorstep. [00:28:00] Just direct your feet to the sign inside of the street. Can, can't you hear that pit and that happy to is your step. Life can be so sweet. On the sunny side of the street, I used to walk in shape,
but he's not afraid. This. Cross over and if I ever have a sip, I be rich. Has rock with gold dust at his feet on the sun inside of the [00:29:00] street.
He used to walk in.
Crossed over, and if I never had a sin, I'll be [00:30:00] rich as.