Heather Cabot, THE NEW CHARDONNAY
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[1:51]Heather Cavitt is an author and award-winning journalist, keynote speaker, and former ABC News
[1:57]correspondent and anchor. She specializes in narrative nonfiction, storytelling, highlighting
[2:02]inspiring tales of innovation, enterprise, grit, and resilient. Her new book is called The New
[2:08]Shardin' A, the unlikely story of how marijuana went mainstream, which by the way she says she is
[2:13]like the last person on the face of the earth who she ever would have thought would have written this book.
[2:16]Anyway, The New Shardin' A tells the unbelievable story of pots astonishing rebranding,
[2:21]pulling back the curtain to show how it drug the book was once the subject of just say no warnings,
[2:26]managed to shed its unsavory image and land at the center of a booming and surprising,
[2:31]upstanding industry. She's also the author of Geek Girl Rising Inside the Sisterhood Shaking Up Tech.
[2:39]It's so good to see you. It's so good to see you too. Thanks for doing this with me inviting
[2:43]me to celebrate the launch with you. I'm so excited to be a part of it. Thank you. This is really an
[2:48]honor for me because I love your podcast and I'm a huge fan, so this is very exciting for me.
[2:54]I put on some of my special The New Shardin' A, CPD, lip balm. I have to say I've been like a no-no,
[3:00]no CBD, anything for me. I don't know, whatever, but this one, I'm like, all in.
[3:05]I'm on the lip balm. It's got some good moisturizer in there.
[3:09]So Heather, I'm just going to ask you a bunch of questions so you can let everybody know more about
[3:14]your book if that's okay. Okay. So what inspired you to write The New Shardin' A? What made you
[3:20]want to research the whole entrepreneurial life behind the cannabis industry basically?
[3:27]Well, there are a couple of inspirations. So one, and I know there are a lot of people watching
[3:32]tonight who've known me since I was a kid, you know, I grew up in the just say no generation.
[3:38]I grew up in the 80s and I, you know, I was never part of really had anything to do with
[3:44]the marijuana subculture at all. I mean, you know, growing up during that time, it just really
[3:48]wasn't part of my life. And now I'm a suburban mom of teens and I'm looking around and I'm seeing
[3:55]celebrities who were talking about marijuana like as if it's just, you know, normal. And
[4:00]for magazine featuring a tea party, a THC infused tea party with women wearing white gloves and
[4:06]hats and Martha Stewart is on TV with Snoop Dogg in this popular cooking show. And I'm looking
[4:13]around and I just, I was really surprised by it. And so the other aha moment is that my first book,
[4:19]you grow rising, a part of that book was focused on women investing in women led tech startups.
[4:26]And so I was involved in that world. And right around the time that that book came out in
[4:30]2017, I noticed that some of the female angel investors and venture capitalists that I had met
[4:35]during the course of reporting that book, that some of those women were investing in Canada startups.
[4:41]And I thought, my goodness, these are people with Wall Street credentials and they seem so
[4:46]straight laced. And I thought, why would they invest in anything that's federally illegal?
[4:50]I just, I couldn't believe it. So I started making phone calls. And I started to learn about
[4:56]how this industry was just exploding. So that was kind of the beginning of it. And really what
[5:02]sealed it for me was somebody who I had interviewed had said, who was an investor had said to me,
[5:06]look, I can't explain this to you in just a phone call. If you really want to understand what's
[5:10]happening, you have to go to the marijuana business convention in Las Vegas as well. And you can
[5:16]imagine what my family thought when I said, I'm going to go to the marijuana business convention,
[5:20]they were like, what are you doing? And but honestly, going there and seeing that it was just like
[5:26]you know, like the consumer electronics trade show, it was like any other trade show that I had
[5:30]ever been, you know, that I'd ever covered as journalists. I just couldn't believe that it was at
[5:35]the scale that it was and how professional it was. And the people that I met were so serious about
[5:40]it. And I just realized that there was a whole story there that many people didn't really know
[5:45]about. And so, you know, that just made me feel like, well, I've got to pursue this.
[5:49]So true. I mean, this is really an amazing business book. I mean, this is up there with like,
[5:54]you know, James Stewart, it's like Disney war and like all these. No, it's true. Because it's
[5:58]a real, it's an examination of an industry and what happens and what makes an entrepreneur and
[6:06]how unpredictable characters become stars. And it's so much more, this could have been about
[6:11]any industry, but it could have been about the internet if this was like 20 years ago. But
[6:15]instead, he found this new industry, which of course has so much more associated with it than
[6:20]just a product. So I don't know. It was like fantastic reporting. Probably a year or
[6:25]year since as a reporter, but I was having the time. You know, I came out of local news. I came out
[6:33]of, you know, I had several years of network news, but even, you know, it was rare to actually
[6:38]have the time to work on a story in depth and to be able to, you know, chip away at something over
[6:45]years. I mean, that is an incredible luxury. So I'm so happy that you say that, you know, you
[6:51]could really tell that the depth there, because because it's not many people get to do that. And
[6:55]that really is a privilege. And the way you were able to write it in such a narrative way, like,
[7:00]that's Devola is laying on her table and, you know, now she is at the pool and Arizona
[7:05]thinking like, what did I get myself into? And it's like you're drawn into the narrative of it.
[7:09]You almost forget that somebody had to go report it. You know, it's like when you see a war photograph
[7:15]and you're like, okay, well, that's just a boy like on the street. But then you're like, well,
[7:17]somebody must have been on that street to capture that reaction. And I feel like that's the
[7:21]immediacy sort of this one. Tell me more about how you've got all your research done. Aside from
[7:27]the one convention, like how many trips did you take? How many interviews did you do? Like, what
[7:32]was the process like? So hundreds of interviews. And part of that is because, first of all, just
[7:39]getting my arms around this industry was, I mean, the learning curve was, I can't even tell you
[7:44]how steep it was because this is a topic. I mean, not only is it, it's complicated. It's controversial,
[7:50]but it touches on everything from business to politics to science to medicine, social justice.
[7:56]I mean, it's, it's so rich. But, and there's so many different facets of it that are really
[8:03]nuanced. And so beginning, it was really just working the phones and talking with people and
[8:09]kind of figuring out what were the, what were the various threads of the story I might want to follow.
[8:15]But it was, it was a lot of just talking to people and then traveling to meet them in person. And
[8:21]so my family, I cannot thank my family and not my husband. I mean, the book is dedicated to my
[8:26]husband because he did so much heavy lifting when I was traveling because, you know, since adult
[8:32]use is not legal in New York, a lot of my, a lot of the folks that I needed to follow were out
[8:36]in California and Colorado and Canada and all these other places. And so I would have to go away
[8:42]for, I usually try to keep it to like two or three days. If I was going to the West Coast,
[8:46]I try to just cram it a ton of interviews. And, and my family on the West Coast, my two sisters,
[8:52]you know, they were like, and my parents when I was in Arizona, you know, everybody let me crash
[8:56]with them. And that was always nice because I was able to, you know, fit in some family time too.
[9:00]And it was really a team effort because to cover this kind of a story where it's just happening in
[9:05]so many different parts of the country. It's such a fragmented industry, right? Every state is different.
[9:11]So to really understand that you have to, you have to go to these places and meet those people and
[9:17]talk to people there on the ground. So it was, it was a total adventure. I mean, it was, it was a lot of
[9:22]fun. And I'm so thankful that I had the chance again, that the time to just, you know, learn and
[9:29]talk to people so I could absorb it all. And I, and I'm still learning. And by the way, I'll just say
[9:34]the industry changes so quickly. I mean, that was the other, that was the other challenge with this
[9:38]story. It was like covering a news story. So, you know, certain characters in the book where I thought
[9:46]something was going to go a certain way for them. I thought, you know, I was going to go with,
[9:50]you know, one character to do something. Well, then that deal fell through. And then,
[9:54]you know, I mean, just so many things were happening in real time,
[9:58]that when I finally sat down to write the book.
[10:00]I really had to calm myself down because I kept worrying that I was missing something because you know
[10:07]it's a book and you do it to stop writing at some point. I think that was like the hardest thing.
[10:11]And how long like what was the actual writing process like after you did all the interviews?
[10:16]Oh my gosh, the writing process was...
[10:20]I was thinking about it today because I knew you were going to ask that.
[10:23]I think I started in May.
[10:25]I don't want to be for this girl.
[10:27]I'm sorry.
[10:29]I want to say it probably took me in total about nine months to write it, to fully write it.
[10:39]What happened was it was actually it was due in September and I wasn't done yet and we had moved and so I kept getting extensions and then I turned it in in January.
[10:50]The whole process altogether was over three years because it took me a year.
[10:54]It took me a year to do enough reporting to actually put together a book proposal that I thought was solid enough that could really explain that there was a story here.
[11:04]Because there have been other books written about the cannabis industry and I wanted to tell this news story with these great characters and I really wanted to do a narrative.
[11:13]So I needed time to find those people and find those stories.
[11:18]I have to say I went and googled all the people because I was like, what do they look like?
[11:23]You created a really great book.
[11:25]But I was like, all right, Chef Jeff, what does he have on the menu?
[11:29]You know?
[11:30]I was like, ooh, my next party.
[11:33]I don't know if we ever have a party.
[11:36]Do you go to Kate Hudson's birthday party when you reported that or just...
[11:40]No, actually, you know what was funny was I hadn't actually met Jeff yet.
[11:46]So the way I met Jeff is kind of the way.
[11:48]This was going to give you a window into kind of how I did the reporting.
[11:51]So I met Jeff because I was reporting on Snoop and Ted's venture capital firm,
[11:57]because I'm already capital, which for those of you when you read the book,
[12:00]you're going to find out about how Snoop and his business partner, Ted Chiang decided that they were going to create this venture capital firm not to invest in like growing or even selling marijuana.
[12:12]They actually were investing in the software and all that the tech behind the industry, which was...
[12:18]They had incredible foresight.
[12:20]And so I was meeting the partners now that,
[12:23]and I had been interviewing the partners that actually managed those investments.
[12:27]And I was telling one of them, it's a really nice guy named Yodie Meyer.
[12:30]And I was saying to him, I'm really interested in these cannabis restaurants.
[12:35]And it was at the time that West Hollywood was...
[12:38]just awarded licenses, the very first licenses for these weed cafes, essentially.
[12:44]And they were going to be really the first ones in the country where you could actually, you know, dining public and have, you know, some type of, you know, whether it was a vapor,
[12:52]whatever paired with your food.
[12:54]And I just thought that was really fascinating.
[12:56]And so I said, do you know anybody who's doing this space?
[13:00]Do you know anyone?
[13:01]And he said, well, actually, I just invested in one of these startup restaurants.
[13:06]I want to introduce you to the partners.
[13:08]So I met the partners, and I started talking a little bit more.
[13:12]And then they started telling me about Jeff.
[13:14]And I was like, I know it's been out of here to cookbook.
[13:17]And I got to cookbook.
[13:19]And there's so many recipes in the cookbook that were, like, Jewish recipes, like, for Jewish holidays.
[13:24]And I was like, that is so funny.
[13:26]And so I just really want to meet him.
[13:28]And so the Kate Hudson thing actually happened.
[13:31]I think for party was probably like two weeks before this time,
[13:36]but I actually flew out to California to go to a private party that he was catering.
[13:41]So I could be with him.
[13:42]I want to be with him in the kitchen because I wanted to understand all of his methods.
[13:45]Because again, like, I'm a complete lawyer.
[13:47]I don't know anything about any of this.
[13:49]You know, this is like, I wanted to learn from him and see his methods.
[13:53]And so that had just happened.
[13:55]And actually it was top secret.
[13:57]No one really knew about him.
[13:59]And then I guess that, you know, her people gave the story to E.
[14:03]And, you know, it was out there so he could talk about it.
[14:05]But no, I didn't go to the party.
[14:07]But, you know, she posted all over Instagram about it.
[14:10]And it was written about.
[14:11]So I was able to kind of glean some of the details.
[14:13]And then I, you know, I was just, I interviewed Jeff too.
[14:15]So yeah, it was, it was fun to see him right after that happened too.
[14:18]But he's put for a lot of people that, you know, he doesn't even,
[14:21]he can't say who they are.
[14:23]But he's been cooking for celebrities for a while.
[14:25]Wow.
[14:26]I love his pots of all like all these.
[14:28]Yeah.
[14:29]You're like funny.
[14:30]Pots Jewish.
[14:31]You knew.
[14:32]You knew.
[14:33]I mean, and I loved his mom.
[14:35]And his mom Sylvia was so lovely.
[14:37]And, you know, gave me so many great stories about him as a kid.
[14:41]And that was my favorite part was learning the backstory of all these people.
[14:46]Because what I really was trying to do was I wanted to write a book that would
[14:52]appeal to anyone just as a really great story.
[14:55]And the fact that cannabis is the backdrop is just kind of the way it is.
[15:00]I was trying to find people that just we're going through, you know, their story
[15:06]just anybody could relate to.
[15:07]They were just in a very human universal way.
[15:10]They were characters that, you know, whether it's as an entrepreneur, whether it's as a parent
[15:15]or, you know, a mom who, you know, is going back to work after leaving, you know, her, her
[15:21]profession for a few years.
[15:22]So they all had different reasons for why they wanted to get into the business.
[15:26]And I found really resonated with me.
[15:29]And I tried to really bring that out.
[15:31]So interviewing Jeff Smart, for example, spending time with that smile on her family.
[15:35]That was like such a great experience.
[15:38]And I'm so thankful that they allowed me to into their worlds.
[15:43]Because it helped a lot.
[15:44]I mean, Ted Chung became one of the characters, the main characters in your book.
[15:48]And you track him sort of throughout his teenage years to being an Asian American.
[15:54]But the way you describe him is sort of like too laid back to fit in to the stereotypes there.
[15:59]And how, you know, he eventually went to this like very Waspy school and had to fit in
[16:04]with the blue bloods that he wasn't familiar with.
[16:06]And then it becomes like, you know, this complete like maven in this industry.
[16:11]Yeah.
[16:12]And yeah, what's Snoop Dogg?
[16:13]And how can you not tell a story about a trajectory like that in someone's life?
[16:17]I mean, it's like, yeah.
[16:20]I mean, I think the thing about Ted that I always found so fascinating about him is he really is a kind of a soft spoken kind of stoic guy.
[16:29]And, but then once you get him talking, he really, you know, reveals a lot about himself and about, you know,
[16:35]I just loved hearing about his family, dad, you know, what kind of spark this entrepreneurial zeal in him.
[16:41]And also what I also was struck by was how that experience of going to college and really sort of feeling like he was on the outside.
[16:51]How that completely shaped the rest of his life and his desire, you know, the marketing agency that he founded cashmere, which is all about marketing to multicultural markets.
[17:03]And the reason why he did that is because, you know, he could see that himself, you know, he he was felt marginalized, you know, and it was just so smart.
[17:13]And I feel like he brought all of that to cannabis as well, you know, and he just he's one of those people that, you know, people will say he's a visionary.
[17:22]And it was just to talk with him about the insights that he had about where cannabis was going to go.
[17:28]I mean, and then to see that he was actually really right on.
[17:31]That was really fascinating for me to see that and to be able to tell that story.
[17:35]Because I think a lot of ways this book is about marketing.
[17:38]It's about rebranding it.
[17:40]It is a business book.
[17:41]You know, I'm not necessarily saying that cannabis is the new shard may.
[17:45]I'm saying it might be.
[17:47]And these are some of the people that are trying to make it so.
[17:51]So maybe it should be called the new shard and a question mark.
[17:54]Hey, maybe for the paper back.
[17:58]Tell me about what it was like also talking to couples like Mel and Cindy McDonald who had to deal with really traumatic stuff like their son Ben who was in a horrible car accident and having all these seizures and wouldn't eat.
[18:10]And the power of marijuana to change his health and to save his life essentially.
[18:16]Like, did that sway you in one way or another in your own personal views of the use of marijuana or the legalization or any of it or how did it make you feel?
[18:24]It just for me, you know, this was never an advocacy book.
[18:28]I'm always approached it as a as a lawyer as a journalist.
[18:32]My feeling going in and, you know, as I finished it was that I just I wanted to shed some light on this industry and how it had matured so quickly.
[18:43]So that people can make their own decisions about it. I thought it was really important to pull the curtain back on the amount of money and that's involved in it.
[18:51]The injustice of of it in terms of, you know, the communities of color that have been cut out of this industry and being able to profit from it.
[19:00]And also when you talk about Mel Mcdonald, the strange bed fellows like the people you would never expect.
[19:08]And, you know, to be not only involved in it, but like, evangelizing.
[19:12]And, you know, I thought, you know, I kind of stumbled into Mel's story because of that.
[19:17]And I don't want to give too much away about the book, but, you know, their story sort of converged in Arizona and in the early days of Arizona's medical market.
[19:27]And I really felt when I had the chance to actually get to know Mel and Cindy that their story in so many ways crystallizes why we've seen cannabis go mainstream.
[19:38]Because, you know, I think it's just it's just this idea that for so many people, it really is medicine.
[19:45]And I never knew anybody who used it as medicine. I just it was really not even in it was nothing I ever was exposed to.
[19:51]So to me then, these, you know, devout Mormons that he's a former former federal prosecutor as you'll find out in the book and Reagan appointed federal prosecutor.
[20:00]because of having this aha moment at a time
[20:03]that he never expected it.
[20:05]And I just felt like along the way
[20:07]as I was meeting people and reporting the book,
[20:09]there were so many people like Mel,
[20:11]like people you would never expect would get behind this.
[20:15]I mean, when I was working on the book,
[20:17]actually right before I finished the proposal,
[20:20]that was one former speaker of the house, John Boehner,
[20:22]who was an incredibly vocal foe of marijuana.
[20:25]I mean, he had once said he was unalterably opposed
[20:28]to marijuana legalization.
[20:30]Well, he joined the board of one of the largest
[20:33]multi-state operators in the US.
[20:36]And I just thought, I mean, that was like head-turning.
[20:38]I just, I couldn't believe it.
[20:40]And so there were all these things that were happening like that.
[20:42]So that's, I was so happy that I had a chance
[20:44]to meet Mel and Cindy,
[20:45]because I think they put a face on this idea of change
[20:50]and people changing attitudes
[20:51]and why they're changing attitudes.
[20:53]And what about this whole other group of people
[20:55]who aren't using it that way,
[20:57]but the shard name moms who you talk about
[20:59]who are happy that they don't have to spend the time
[21:01]even drinking it, doesn't go to their waistline.
[21:04]Like this is the new new thing.
[21:06]And they're all like, sort of, tittering about it.
[21:08]What about them?
[21:09]Anything this is going to be adopted by like, you know,
[21:12]let me snide out.
[21:14]Well, I've been already seeing that
[21:15]in certainly in the marketing two moms.
[21:18]I think, you know, if you go to California,
[21:21]you know, you've got any place where it's legal for adult use.
[21:24]you'll see these products that are labeled as micro doves.
[21:27]So it's this idea of, you know, this kind of like,
[21:30]yeah, it's like having a glass of wine.
[21:32]It's not going to leave you hung over.
[21:34]It's not, that's how it's marketed.
[21:36]And I think that there's an appetite for that
[21:39]among a certain group of people that, you know,
[21:43]they don't want to headache.
[21:44]They don't want to gain weight.
[21:45]You know, so I think these businesses
[21:47]are very savvy focusing on that.
[21:50]And what I also write about in the book
[21:52]is that alcohol consumption has gone down in recent years.
[21:55]And so there was an opportunity there for these companies.
[21:58]And I think, you know, it's as it spreads across the country.
[22:02]As you see, you know, more states approving recreational use.
[22:06]I think you're going to see more product innovation around that.
[22:09]And then the other part of it is the growth of CBD,
[22:12]which, you know, when, which CBD is it comes from the cannabis plant.
[22:18]But there is a, you know, because of the farm bill,
[22:21]when it comes from half, which is a very low THC variety of cannabis,
[22:25]that's legal.
[22:26]And so that opened up a whole door for all of these companies
[22:30]that have been doing more THC products
[22:32]is considered doing CBD lines.
[22:35]And I mean, that's why you're seeing it now.
[22:37]And Sephora and Bed Bath and Beyond and all these, you know,
[22:40]your local drugstore, I mean, you can buy it anywhere now.
[22:43]It's only really been since 20, the end of 2018.
[22:47]There's not a tremendous amount of regulation around it,
[22:50]which I think is problematic.
[22:51]And I think you're going to see guidelines coming out of Washington.
[22:54]But my point is that because CBD is not intoxicating,
[22:59]it is more appealing to people.
[23:01]And there are potential therapeutic benefits that people talk about.
[23:05]It certainly needs more research.
[23:07]But women are using it in large numbers right now for insomnia, stress, anxiety.
[23:13]There was just a big report that came out of a company called BDSA in Denver
[23:18]that tracks sales.
[23:20]And women are driving this.
[23:22]Women are going and they're shopping for CBD for all of these kinds of things.
[23:27]I don't know about you, but I mean, all my friends,
[23:31]we're all dealing with sleeplessness and stress and anxiety.
[23:34]So you can kind of understand why there's an appetite for it,
[23:37]but also why these companies are seizing on that
[23:40]because they know there's an opportunity there.
[23:42]So I think we're just in the beginning.
[23:45]We're like sitting ducks.
[23:46]We stressed out moms here at the till at the end.
[23:52]The months of this COVID stuff, they're like the word.
[23:57]See our market opportunity.
[23:58]Wow, it's amazing.
[24:00]So now that you've finished the writing,
[24:03]and now that this book is coming out into the world,
[24:06]is this a case-close situation for you?
[24:09]Or is it the kind of thing where you have Google alerts
[24:11]and you're just fascinated and want to find out
[24:14]everything more that's coming?
[24:15]Like, did this wet your appetite or shut it down?
[24:18]I'm kind of ready for something new.
[24:20]I mean, it was great.
[24:21]I've enjoyed it, and I probably will continue
[24:23]to speak and write about it through the election.
[24:25]And obviously through, it is a fascinating topic.
[24:28]I really care a lot about the social justice piece,
[24:33]and I will follow that closely.
[24:35]And I will probably continue to do some freelance writing
[24:38]around that piece of it, the gender equality, gender equity,
[24:42]racial and social equity pieces of all of this.
[24:44]I think those issues are really complicated,
[24:49]and I think that as you see more states looking at legalization,
[24:53]that that's something to pay attention to.
[24:55]It's something I care about.
[24:56]So it's definitely from that perspective,
[24:59]but am I going to be a kind of a beat reporter?
[25:01]No.
[25:02]So it was an intellectual challenge.
[25:06]It was a really meaty, really amazing topic
[25:11]that I knew nothing about that I had three years
[25:15]to learn about.
[25:16]And I met some amazing people and incredible entrepreneurs
[25:21]who risked it all.
[25:23]I mean, the book is really about, it's about that.
[25:26]It felt like what drives somebody to go for it
[25:29]when they could lose everything.
[25:31]And I'm fascinated by those stories.
[25:34]So I think whatever I do next,
[25:35]it's going to be around entrepreneurship again.
[25:38]I don't think it's necessarily going to be in cannabis.
[25:41]I'm sorry.
[25:42]That's OK.
[25:43]I'm going to be in now.
[25:46]Do you have an industry?
[25:47]You have your mind set on?
[25:50]I have so many.
[25:51]But right now, I'm just kind of focused on this,
[25:53]because I want to get through the election too,
[25:55]because there is no, I was saying earlier
[25:56]about how the stories are always changing.
[25:58]I mean, even to do any of these interviews,
[26:00]I have to constantly prepare and stay
[26:03]on top of what's happening.
[26:04]And because for the political scene and the business aspect,
[26:09]it really is changing every day.
[26:11]So I still read my diet of all the newsletters.
[26:15]And my inbox is full of these like marijuana,
[26:18]business updates for now.
[26:21]But for a couple of this, because I really
[26:22]feel like I need to stay on top,
[26:23]and I need to be able to speak intelligently about it.
[26:26]But I don't know.
[26:27]It's funny, like this.
[26:28]I never would have, if you would ask me
[26:30]would I ever write a book about that,
[26:31]I mean, I would have just, my family and my friends
[26:33]couldn't believe it when I told them
[26:35]that this is what I was going to write about.
[26:36]And now that now they've seen the book,
[26:38]and they know why I found it so interesting.
[26:41]So I don't know yet.
[26:42]But I figure out a lot of time,
[26:45]we're going to be in lockdown for a few more months
[26:49]a lot of time to think about it.
[26:51]So I know you have teen twins, and I have teen twins,
[26:54]newly teen.
[26:55]What's the takeaway for them?
[26:57]Like as a parent, now that you've learned so much more
[27:00]about marijuana and CBD and like all of it.
[27:03]And I know it was a byproduct of the business side
[27:05]or the passion for the people and the players
[27:07]in the industry, but along the way,
[27:09]I know you've learned so much, included a lot in it.
[27:11]What advice do you feel like?
[27:13]Like what advice is a mom?
[27:15]Are you going to give your kids like knowing what you know?
[27:18]I mean, what I tell them is what I tell them about alcohol.
[27:21]Which is that this is not for you.
[27:23]We've had some really great conversations
[27:25]about just substance use in general substance abuse.
[27:29]And many people, there's sort of a folklore
[27:32]that you can't become a habitual user of marijuana.
[27:36]That is not true.
[27:37]People who have a predisposition to substance abuse
[27:41]or they have it in their families.
[27:42]And they can be at risk.
[27:44]And also, it's a new industry.
[27:46]And it's not the illicit market is still thriving.
[27:51]So if you live in a place where,
[27:54]I mean, even if you live in a place where it is legal,
[27:57]I mean, and you need to talk to your kids
[27:59]about the dangers of getting it.
[28:02]And you don't know what's in it.
[28:04]And that's for adults too, frankly.
[28:06]I mean, it really is.
[28:07]So we had some really great conversations
[28:10]about that.
[28:11]We talked about brain development,
[28:13]and why substance use,
[28:15]before your brain is finished developing,
[28:17]particularly THC is an alcohol.
[28:19]Not a good idea, just not a good idea.
[28:22]But even more than that,
[28:23]my most important conversations with them
[28:27]really related to this book
[28:28]were really around the racial injustices of the drug war.
[28:32]and really being able to,
[28:35]especially this summer as our country is going through
[28:37]this incredible reckoning on race,
[28:39]to have a conversation with them about my work
[28:42]and the relationship to systemic racism.
[28:45]And what I found out about how drug enforcement in this country,
[28:49]has led to really, you know,
[28:52]devastating consequences for communities of color.
[28:55]And that was really meaningful for me
[28:57]to be able to have that conversation with them as well.
[29:00]And I've said to people, you know,
[29:02]my kids were actually really embarrassed
[29:04]that I was working on this book originally,
[29:06]and they wouldn't, they were like,
[29:09]don't tell anyone what you're working on.
[29:10]I mean, they really were not happy about it initially.
[29:13]So once we started having some conversations
[29:16]about what I was finding out,
[29:17]the people that I met along the way,
[29:20]whose lives were touched by the war on drugs
[29:22]and had relatives that were incarcerated,
[29:25]or, you know, who had experienced stop and frisk,
[29:28]and, you know, that kind of stuff,
[29:30]it was really, it was just really meaningful
[29:34]to be able to give them practical examples
[29:36]of how, you know, we need to stand up for injustice,
[29:40]and we need to be aware, you know,
[29:43]of what's going on outside our little bubble.
[29:45]And that to me was probably one of the most important
[29:48]conversations that I had with them.
[29:49]Beyond the just they know conversation,
[29:51]which thank goodness we've been having
[29:52]for a number of years anyway.
[29:54]You know, it's not just one conversation, right?
[29:57]You know, it's also modeling the behavior,
[29:58]it's not going.
[30:00]conversation and you hope you hope right that that dialogue continues. So I hope it says it's probably the
[30:07]best thing you could have done like I feel like if your mom no if like if your mom is into something
[30:14]that it can't be off limits like I when I grew up my mom smoked and then when my friend started
[30:19]smoking I was like well that's not cool like my mom does that like the most strategic way to handle
[30:27]it really I think they you know it's like I knew too much about it you know I think it would
[30:32]I think you know but they're so young right now anyway they're only going to be you know freshman
[30:35]in high school but the only thing I'll say for the parents listening one thing that I didn't
[30:40]understand and if there's one thing as a parent that you will take away from my book other than
[30:45]just you know sort of like you know just the fun stories but I didn't know anything about
[30:50]concentrates I didn't know anything about cannabis oil I didn't know anything about these other products
[30:56]and that is something that is a parent you definitely want to familiarize yourself with so
[31:03]you go into more depth in the book about it but basically there are derivatives of the cannabis
[31:07]plant that can be made into oils and that's what are that's the stuff that's used in bay
[31:12]cartridges and it can be you know turned into a kind of a wax that kids can there's a thing
[31:17]called dabbing where we're not kids with people you know inhale it there's also you know that's used
[31:23]for edibles as well and it can be highly highly potent and there was a report that came out of
[31:28]Colorado last week which for the most part since legalization has not seen an uptick in overall
[31:35]teens using cannabis but this report last week actually found an increase in dabbing and also in
[31:44]vaping even after the vaping crisis so what that says to me is a parent like you just need to
[31:50]familiarize yourself with what's going on and the different ways the different forms that this
[31:56]can be used and and those forms can be incredibly cool just you know certainly smoking it as
[32:03]well but but these are highly concentrated forms of THC so I just think as a parent it's just
[32:08]if you don't know about that it is something to research and be aware of because those forms
[32:13]are can also be much more subtle you don't necessarily know that your child has that so I think
[32:19]that's really important to see you where that the products of all they're all evolving quickly
[32:25]and by the way Jeff on his website teaches you how to make your own cannabis oil so if you ever
[32:30]want to start experimenting you could start there if you're an adult if you're an adult if you're
[32:35]an adult and you're going to stay where it's allowed I'm not advocating it's just
[32:41]putting it out there I am not putting out a point of view well Heather thank you and thank you to
[32:46]the strand and congratulations on your books and your nay amazing thank you for including me in
[32:54]the lunch and thank you to every my gosh you to listen and ask questions and everything else
[32:59]and please go buy the book for anybody who hasn't yet there's a little link at the bottom
[33:04]right there for just a new chardonnay so maybe thank you so much this is like a dream come true
[33:09]I've been listening to for months and to be able to be interviewed by you it's just really it's
[33:14]like that you sing on the cake so I mean I just I'm thank you so so much for your time and for
[33:20]all you do to support authors and to encourage people to read it's just it's so important so
[33:25]thank you and thank you to the strand also for this opportunity it was just it may be launched
[33:30]week for me honestly thank you everybody for joining us too thank you bye
[33:39]thanks so much to firstbook.org for sponsoring this Labor Day book blast please consider giving
[33:46]to firstbook.org to help their network of 475,000 educators serving children in need
[33:52]thanks for listening to this episode of moms don't have time to read books don't forget to
[33:56]follow me on instagram at zibi Owens and at moms don't have time to read books also sign
[34:01]up for my newsletter at zibiowens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots of authors
[34:06]on zoom every other week thanks so much to steve and ryan at texture sound for the sound editing
[34:12]and thank you to morning moon productions for providing this fantastic intro and outro music