Episode Transcript

Trevor:  Kirk.

Kirk: Hey, we're back.

Trevor:  How about we say who we are? How about say who are this time? We've kind of forgot that one.

Kirk:  Sure, I'm Kirk Nyquist. I'm the Registrar Nurse in Manitoba. We are Reefer Medness, the Podcast.

Trevor:  I'm Trevor Shewfelt, I'm the pharmacist, and we ended part one by saying how we think some of the rules and regs around cannabis events in Manitoba were less than ideal. How about we jump into part two by asking Reverend Kelly what she thinks about what we've described. Sure.

Reverend Kelly That's terrible. Um, so it's different here in Ontario. Um. If I, I was just at a concert this past summer, Guns N' Roses and they had the smoking sections. And actually it says, this is the place where you can smoke your cigarettes and your cannabis. So cannabis was on all of the signs anywhere that you go. They're at the airport. Um you can smoked cigarettes and cannabis here. So more open with that language I think is really important. And that's part of the work that I do with the CCTA, with the Canadian Cannabis Tourism Alliance, is lobby for that change. When the Cannabis Act was written, there was no real regulations that were written for cannabis tourism. I love the Blue Jays so much. I can go to see a Blue J game and I can have alcohol there, but I cannot have cannabis beverages. What? That is ridiculous. So that's the stuff that we're fighting for. And for those pieces as well, like if you can go outside and you can have an alcohol, you can beer festivals or whatever they're called, why can't we have cannabis ones? Why are we not having any cannabis lunches? So that sort of the language that we are using. And so when I do my ceremonies, my events, my weddings, I have to fit into the box, right? I do. Depending on like Jamaica has a very different Jamaica is not legalized there for adult use they have medical they're different because they have the Rastafarian beliefs so it's a lot of cultural pieces and sacramental of course but they're a little bit different so there we have to do it as this is a private event at Coral Cove and you can only come there if you're invited and part of that and use the cannabis privately Um, so, so I imagine that that would be the same way with what is in Manitoba. Here, when we do events, we do an annual 420 event in Niagara Falls. We just took over an entire Inn, entire, entire high-end hotel, um, in Niagara Falls this past, uh, April. And there was cannabis everywhere. There was like cannabis, you couldn't buy it, but we had cannabis delivered from a, um retailer that was just up the road. We had cannabis sections and cannabis booths and, you know, sampling and everything like that and it was just there. It was out in the open. Dining in the hall of the hotel were children and families and there was no issue, there was no problem, everything was legal. We even had the OCS sponsor us and support what we were doing. And so I think the way to do it is to fit into the box where you have to, but also push those lines out a little bit and say, you know, this is like if you can have full alcohol everywhere, why can't I have my cannabis? Why?

Trevor:  No, I agree. I'm food because I love food. And you're talking about all that lovely cannabis infused food. When cannabis became legal in Canada, Kirk and I held a dinner party where we infused a bunch of things to moderate success or maybe our cooking skills leave it a little bit to be desired. But how does that work? As the as the couple do I sort of buy the cannabis infused food first or how do we get the cannabis and the food and the food to the place?

Reverend Kelly I love it. I love your question. So the couple will decide what they want to eat for their food and then how that flavor profile looks. And I work with a lot of cannabis chefs. I actually pioneered a competition called So You Think You Can Cook with Cannabis. And so we've done it in British Columbia, Ontario, we're on to Quebec next. And, so I work a lot with culinary chefs and they're brilliant with what they're doing. So let's say they come to my chef, They say this is what I want to eat. And then the chef says okay here's the strains cultivars that you need to purchase from your regulatory body. From your retailer stores. You go purchase that and then you bring it to me and I will infuse the food with it after. So that's sort of the way to get around it for infusing the food there are private events that i have heard of that do this is a private ticketed event. You have purchased a ticket to this event and your food will be infused there's also people that will do private in their home events. So you've got a culinary cannabis chef that will come and create something for you. You've provided the full ingredients of the meal and cannabis is just an ingredient. And so you've provided that as well. So that's sort of the workaround way to get around it.

Trevor:  Okay, because I know there will be people who, you know, I like the idea of the kind of the food, the beverages, that sounds, sorry, I'm already married, apologies to my wife, I am not planning another wedding, this is just, you now, if I was to do this again. Renewal, yes, I like the food and the beverages but there's definitely going to be couples who want a full, we'll call it smoky experience. If you held this outside where smoking was available, do we ever go that way where, you know, we both have a bong up there in front of you or something, does that happen?

Reverend Kelly It's communal. Smoking is communal in a lot of ways. Some people prefer to smoke as opposed to eating and that's great too. That is part of the ceremony, but it's always curated around the couple. Maybe the woman, let's say, the woman and a man are getting married and the woman is, she smokes every day, but her husband, he just tries CBD sometimes on the weekends or something that. So we want to make sure that that ceremony is curated for them. Just exactly, maybe he is consuming a pipe with some CVD in it, maybe she is consuming a bong with THC in it. So it just really depends on what the couple needs and how they feel inside their heart. I meet with them ahead of time. We make sure everybody is on the same page and wants the experience. We don't want anybody to be intoxicated. We want them to be elevated, right? We want them to be conscious and feeling well and happy and you know enjoying what is going around. We don't want anybody to be greening out or over-consuming or any of that, right?

Trevor:  Nope, so obviously the couple likes the idea of having cannabis, that's why they came to you in the first place. Do you ever have issues with, we'll call it the family, the guests? Have we had ceremonies where, you know, mother of the bride or father of the groom said this is a terrible idea, does that ever come up?

Reverend Kelly Not yet, but anybody that I'm working with thus far has been completely integrated into the cannabis society, the cannabis sector. So but that said nobody is ever forced to consume cannabis and if they want to participate there's just so much that you can do without having to inhale or consume you can just hold a bud in your hand you can you know just feel that cannabis essence. You don't need to necessarily consume to be part of the experience however they can choose to. So if the couple has a wedding party and audience of maybe 20 or 30 people and says well we want everybody to consume then they're going to get a little pipe on their plate. You know, as part of the setting, maybe they have their fork and their spoon and their knife and then they also get a little pipe and that's theirs to take home. They get to go over to a little bud bar and learn from the person at the bud bar what the experience is. Oh, I want to try dabbing today. I want try hash today. I want you know, those kinds of things. So it's there. The opportunity is there. But it's what everybody feels comfortable with, right? We don't want to push anything on that mother-in-law that's learned, no, cannabis is too scary. Okay mom why don't you try this right now right but let's talk about what it is doing for your body and that's always part of it too. As a professional cannabis educator, I'm there to educate you through the ceremony. I'm going to talk about cannabis spirituality, but I want to also talk about the interactions of the body of what the cannabis is doing to you and why it's good for you and why you should be open to it.

Trevor:  That is very cool because I'm sure you've had lots of interesting ones so I'll ask the thing that reporters, which I am not, love to ask and people hate to get is what's the most memorable sort of cannabis wedding you can think of or something that stuck out that people went oh I want this and go I'm not sure how to do that or that turned out really cool or can you think of one or two sort of favorites that pop to mind?

Reverend Kelly You know, I've never had anything that's like over extreme. Everybody just sort of wants a good time. They want the ceremony, they want the piece of it. It all just really flows. There's never been anything that really unusual. I think there's going to be some discoveries when it comes to this cannabis wedding, when your dream cannabis wedding part that I'm doing in Jamaica, because that's completely different. I'm headed to Jamaica. They have different belief system. We have to honor their belief system there, Which is also so important. I don't know who my winning couple is yet. They could be already in Jamaica or they could be coming to Jamaica for this. And so I'm really looking forward to seeing how that goes. I think the most odd, if you want to find it, would be someone had a request for a hemp made dress. And we couldn't do that yet, but I look forward to a day where I can actually have your wedding dress made from hemp.

Trevor:  Kirk would love this. My co-host brags about how many articles of clothing he has weighed of hemp. He'll quite often say, right now my pants and shirt are all hemp, just my hat is missing. Anyway, Kirk loves everything hemp related, so he will love the idea of a hemp cannabis dress. Maybe he'll be wearing one, I don't know. I assume not, but who knows? Maybe Kirk will suddenly decide to have wedding dresses for him.

Reverend Kelly We'll have bow ties, yeah.

Trevor:  Bow ties, nice. Very. So this has been very cool. And again, we could have you on for hours because you're involved with so many different things, but how about we'll, let's go this way. Anything I sort of missed, anything you wished I'd asked about cannabis weddings and ceremonies and what you guys do.

Reverend Kelly Sure. Well, as far as cannabis spirituality, I actually teach the method three times a year. I'm about to start a new cohort next week. Actually, September 2nd, we'll go for six weeks with eight students. I have taught it from students from New Zealand to Scotland to Canada to the U.S. They all come on because it's all virtual. And it's certainly, any feedback that I've got from that has been, like they say, it's transformational. That it's transformed them. Um they did not see that perspective for I go directly into the history and the science and why it was illegal and why we should be using it for cannabis spirituality because it always has been with humans um so that's that's something maybe I I would like to share with you a little bit

Trevor:  Yeah, no, no. That comes up a lot. Yes, we've had guests in the past. One gentleman whose name is going to escape me now, he was very into meditation with cannabis and touched upon, I won't say the same, but touched upon some of the same themes that you were. So yes, it has definitely come up often. Well, it feels like we should have you back on for four or five different episodes, you know, everything from tourism to lounges, but. I think we'll wrap that up from here. Thank you very much, Cannabis Weddings. I didn't even know it was a thing, and now it's a fascinating thing that I need to know more about. We really appreciate the fact you introduced this to us.

Reverend Kelly You can find it at cannabisweddings.ca.

Trevor:  Kirk, I loved that one, I really did. I wasn't quite sure what I would get when I interviewed someone about cannabis weddings and what we got was reiki master cannabis expert who knows what endocannabinoids are and moving energy around and spirituality and, and, she was great.

Kirk:  Yeah. No, I liked her diversity. The wedding is unique and being able to marry somebody and also help them with their spiritual use of cannabis. That was very cool.

Trevor:  Yeah and to be honest I'm usually, I'm the sciency guy, the woo-woo was not usually my thing but she really reminded me of a previous guest we had. So I looked it up, E135 Shiva dances within Buddha's garden with Will Johnson. Go back and check that out, he was also excellent and talked about spirituality and cannabis and you were just saying the spirituality stuff reminded view of somebody else that we've talked to recently.

Kirk:  Yes, that was out of episode 136, The Cannabis Coach, where we basically declared the unregulated health educator, Therese Bowers, out of the Kootenays, her webpage. Is really a big part of her coaching is spirituality. And it's interesting, I think we've got three or, I think that's our third spiritual coach we've had as guests. And I think maybe there's probably more out there. Probably.

Trevor:  Yeah, but it's kind of I just it no, no, it is very cool. And like I said, that's not you. I'm not usually the woo guy. But no, this was this was very cool and to just go back to weddings for a second. Sorry. Maybe maybe I am up for renewing vows with Doris. But I really like how Reverend Kelly's whole philosophy was keeping everybody comfortable. So from, you know. If the new mother-in-law doesn't want anything to do with cannabis, maybe she could just hold a cannabis flower or a bud in her hands. If the bride-to-be is really into inhaling, they could have a bong. If the groom-to be or the other bride-be doesn't really do the cannabis thing, know but maybe they'll have a little bit of CBD oil like it was It wasn't about getting intoxicated. It wasn't about getting high. It was about being elevated and sort of, it was a spiritual practice about getting everyone comfortable with the plant, with each other and the union. I, it sounds like they really put a lot of effort into keeping everybody comfortable and happy. And this isn't, you know, what you'd think of when you, well, when I would think of, when, I was a 14 year old boy, let's all go to a wedding and get stoned. That was not what this is.

Kirk:  You were thinking that at 14?

Trevor:  I don't know. I don't remember anything that long ago, back in the Stone Age.

Kirk:  Oh, good one, good on. I saw what you did there.

Trevor:  Yeah, that was unintentional. That's why it worked.

Kirk:  No, I think it's kind of cool. I'm just looking at a web page, Cannabis as a Spiritual Ally. We've talked about this so many times, right down to putting individual pipes on people's dishes at the table. It's interesting. Did you get into where these are she is she holding these weddings in public places in Ontario?

Trevor:  No, from my understanding, and also interestingly, jump back and forth a little bit between what she's done several times in Ontario to the, it should have happened by this point, one they did in Jamaica where there's a whole bunch of different stuff because, you know, it's medicinally legal, not recreationally legal, you have to take care of the Rastafarian beliefs and traditions, and they were taking care of all that, but back to Ontario um it sounded like it was more like a private place so let's call it a hall for lack of a better word and you could follow if you follow this if you were inhaling you could have to follow the smoking guidelines so you know if we're going to be inhaling during the ceremony you'd have to be outside in a designated area yada yada um and it sounded like the big deal was not having... The cannabis for sale on site like if you were having say infused food from my understanding what she was saying you would sort of organize with the chef ahead of time that everything would be bought by the couple ahead time basically given to the chef and the chef would do the the infusing for you if i'm keeping all my my things straight did i answer your question or dad going to town.

Kirk:  No, no, I think you answered the question. I do remember her saying that... They add the cannabis afterwards and sort of what, I think it was, Therese, we interviewed a cook and I was busy trying to, we got such a large library of cannabis knowledge on our webpage, reefermed.ca. We interviewed a cook cooking with cannabis and his whole stick, for lack of a better word is that he makes yeah track sparks episode episode 155 he made sauces so you know you could serve your food so if you're having a cannabis wedding that you can go up and you know gather your food from the buffet bring it to the table and then there could be sauces waiting for you that you could you could then put the infused sauce on your food and now I'm not saying this what she's doing in her weddings no but I think we talk about cooking.

Trevor:  While we're down the food rabbit hole, and I love food rabbit holes, another side project is if she has a cooking competition, so you think you can cook with cannabis that she's run in three different provinces because aside from cannabis wedding, she's into so many other things.

Kirk:  No, no, her webpage. It'll be a link to our webpage. She's very busy in cannabis. She is doing a lot of things. She is doing wellness practitioners as a Reiki practitioner, spirituality as a reverend. She's, you know, she's doing it. And it's interesting because... Manitoba, the laws that we have in Manitobre prevents us from doing a lot of this stuff. Unless we have a large property, but as soon as you make your property open to the public, there could be a concern about it being a public event and you can't consume cannabis at a public event. So I think it's even a gray area in Manitobe if you were to sell cannabis at your house, if you give it away... I don't know man, I guess we're just going to have to do it and see if we get busted. we can do something like of something like that

Trevor:  You desperately want us to get us arrested. Maybe we can avoid that, but I agree. It's something we should investigate further. Reverend Kelly, sir, we got a little sidetracked, but you do so many things that we got little sidetracked, but thank you very much. That was great. Kirk, anything else that you think we should cover with Reverend Kelly?

Kirk:  Again so much. We get these guests, we could talk to them and create a week's worth of episodes with them. Her web page is there. She's doing the cannabis gig and she's there to help you understand cannabis better. So yeah, you heard it right here at reefermed.ca. Go to our web page and I'm going to add, I think I told you I'm gonna add a new searched keyword in our web page.

Trevor: Spirituality one.

Kirk:  Because that this is the third.

Trevor: I think that's perfect. T.

Kirk:  His is the 3rd episode directly on spirituality. So we'll do that

Trevor: All right, have another good one, everyone. Come back for more interesting episodes at ReeferMedness the podcast on all them, their socials. And like Kirk said, visit reefermed.ca for all things Reefer Medness.

Kirk:  All right man. See you on the other side.

Trevor: You bet.