Dale Schafer, Attorney, Speaker, Dale Schafer Law
Dale has been a practicing California attorney for more that 30 years and active in the California cannabis space for 20 years. In 1999, he and his (then) wife, Dr. Mollie Fry, opened one of the first 5 medical cannabis recommendation clinics. His persistent political action, on behalf of medical cannabis patients, led to a federal DEA raid, arrest and a 60 month prison sentence. However, the California State Bar found no moral turpitude and so he is a practicing attorney to this day. Since the transition to a regulated cannabis system, in California, Dale has focused his practice on lobbying jurisdictions to allow commercial cannabis activity and assisting operators to transition into the regulated market. Additionally, he mediates commercial cannabis disputes and acts as an expert witness in similar legal issues. Dale has recently participated in the advocacy for the compassion program in California and, as a member of the International Cannabis Bar Association, he sits on the Appellations Project. Additionally, Dale is focused on business education for social equity applicants.
Website - https://daleschaferlaw.wordpress.com/
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/daleschaferlaw/?ref=bookmarks
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/daleschaferlaw/
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
[00:00:01] You're listening to Thinking Outside the Bud where we speak with entrepreneurs investors thought leaders researchers advocates and policymakers who are finding new and exciting ways for cannabis to positively impact business society and culture. And now, here is your host Business Coach Bruce Eckfeldt.
[00:00:30] Are you a CEO looking to scale your company faster and easier. Checkout Thrive Roundtable thrive combines a moderated peer group mastermind expert one on one coaching access to proven growth tools and a 24/7 support community created by Inc. Award winning CEO and certified scaling up business coach Bruce Eckfeldt. Thrive will help you grow your business more quickly and with less drama. For details on the program visit Eckfeldt.com/thrive. That's E C K F E L D T.com/thrive.
[00:01:06] Welcome, everyone. This is Thinking Outside The Bud. I'm Bruce Eckfeldt. I'm your host. And our guest today is Dale Schafer. He is an attorney out of California. We're going to talk to him about cannabis law. We're gonna talk to you about the work that he's doing with entrepreneurs, with business leaders in the cannabis space, making sure they have their ducks in order so that when they develop their business, start their business, grow their business. They don't run into problems with legislation, with legal issues, making sure that they're they're not at risk, unfortunately. A difficult thing to do these days, given the complexities of laws, the changing of laws, both federal, state, municipal. So we're gonna learn a little bit more about how that works. We're gonna learn about the work that he's doing, some of the common mistakes, pitfalls, challenges folks fall into. Hopefully things you can avoid if you're getting into the cannabis space with that deal. Welcome to the program. Thank you. So why don't we start a little bit with your background. Tell us about how you got into cannabis. Tell us about the law. Tell us about cannabis law. What was the story that got you to where you are today?
[00:01:59] Breast cancer? Nineteen ninety seven. I was married to a physician whose mother died of breast cancer and she was diagnosed with the cancer in both her breasts. And we both men, I don't know, state closet pot smokers for years. But, you know, let's be frank. We're professionals and you kept on the down low. But when she was diagnosed with cancer and they recommended just horrible chemotherapy, we both what it meant and we both were very well aware of the anti emetic effects of cannabis. And we just passed Prop 215 here in California. So I got very actively involved at the state and local level to try and bring some peace to people who were sick and trying to take care of their loved ones.
[00:02:36] Yeah, a tragic story. And unfortunately, it's not an uncommon one of of, you know, people getting involved in cannabis because of, you know, health issues and, you know, dealing with the unfortunate side effects. A lot of the medication and, you know, chemotherapy and opioids and turn into cannabis for that purpose. NEGUS I'm curious what when you first started getting involved in it. Any surprises at he initial reactions? What what did you learn as you started to get involved in actual use of candidates or in the cannabis industry at the time?
[00:03:01] Well, what I learned is that most physicians are sissies when it comes to bucking the system. And well, Balli, my ex was not. Yeah, because we were in an existential situation. We hunker down until she got through chemo and came out on the other side of that. But then we were both angry at having physicians that just refused to even talk to you about cannabis when you're going into chemo. Her oncologist literally turned white, backed up against a wall and was at a loss for words when we asked him just to write something in the records that she's gonna use cannabis. And he gave us a prescription for Marinol and that kept us from being arrested when the cops showed up. And I was groans half a dozen plants in the backyard. Wow. It was it was amazing, you know. And because I used to represent police officers and cops and I had worked with attorney generals, we went to Bill LOCKYER, who was our state attorney general the time. He directed me right to a former attorney general that I had worked with on a CHP case. And he was D.A. JI's cannabis guy. So we went to the medical board because we were curious about how physicians examine and give these recommendations. We went to different counties and cities and talked to the police and district attorneys about what might be a reasonable amount to grow. I work within our county after I ran for district attorney and forced on to talk to me. We worked out guidelines for the cops to leave you alone, so you take care of your loved one. And it just sort of grew from there at that point.
[00:04:25] Growing your own cannabis was.
[00:04:27] But it was a plant, but you could do up to six plants. Or how did how did you actually figure out what you could grow, how you could grow it to what quantity?
[00:04:33] Well, at first I was out in the black market at 4000 a pound. It didn't take long to figure out that's not a sustainable model. You know, I had some friends give me some cuttings and there was just in its infancy then. So some people gave me some clones and I ended up with six or eight of them on the hillside. I want an accountant. S Why? No. What's it gonna take? And the DEA had just published some information about, you know, how much per plant, per volume and things like that. And so I was playing around with that. But ultimately, she you know, she was using a lot aurally smoking to keep from all the problems from chemo. And then someone called the cops on us, really? And they showed up. And it's like, you know, she said, look, I've got cancer, you know? And we said, volunteer our services and the courts. They knew who we were. The cops knew us. We took them on the hillside. Look, I'm girl in here. That's supposed to be a state law. Here's our Marinol bottle. The doctor said it's kind of OK. And then we're told, well, you'll be all right, but it's the other people. And that was the next thing that. Really irritated us. It's like what you mean we'll be all right because we're wealthy white professionals. Is that is that you?
[00:05:34] That was the implication because of your economic status. You would you would you would get through the system, but other otherwise wouldn't.
[00:05:40] It was multi-factorial, but we were in privileged position. Yes. And that was Dutches didn't sit well because by that point, we had some people contacting us that, gee, you know, can you help us? She's a physician. OK. I had a hard time telling people just, you know, go pound sand and die or suffer. And once you start that, then the line at your door is way around the block. We got very busy, very fast. And within a short period of time, we were on the federal radar because they threatened doctors prescribing licenses. If you dared to do this and a group of physicians went to federal court and got an injunction to stop them. But they were still attacking physicians and they attacked her viciously.
[00:06:22] And how does someone go about doing that? Was the. Was the method of the attack?
[00:06:26] Well, they went after her federal prescribing license or certificate. And you can't prescribe narcotics without that. And for the typical physician, without being able to prescribe pain medication, really is it's it's handicapping now. And in the government knew that. And she was ultimately attacked and they took it away. And then they wanted her medical license. And that's that's really where we we just went toe to toe with them. You know, she gave them the middle finger and told what they do about that. And we ended up in, you know, being indicted and charged and convicted and sent to federal prison because we told them to pound sand.
[00:06:59] When? When when was this? What what time period are we talking about?
[00:07:02] Well, they they arrived at our property, 20 cars deep two weeks after 9/11 in 2001. We were ultimately charged in 2005 after the rates decision from the Supreme Court. We were tried in 2007, sentenced in 2008, surrendered in 2011, were released in 2015. And ultimately, both of us are now off of federal supervision and free to go back to full practice. I might point out, though, I still have my license to practice law. She no longer is a licensed physician by choice or by situation. Oh, no. The federal government went through the medical board in California and it was it was vicious. It was horrible to watch.
[00:07:43] Tragic. So and so I guess. How did that experience kind of set you up for what you're doing? I mean, I guess I'm sure a large part of this was, you know, around your sense of justice and and what was right and you know, what what needed to kind of get corrected in both the kind of social and political and legal system, you know. But give me some insights about like, you know, coming out of this ordeal. You were coming out of prison and coming out of, you know, going through this. You know, what part of that was just how did that motivate your how to do that, set you up for what you're doing today and then the work that you're doing now?
[00:08:14] Well, the early experience was that we had followed every state law, a mandate. I was involved as much as I could and trying to give iterations of rules and things so people could follow them. And the state ultimately or our local jurisdiction called the feds. And because it was all against federal law, which told me that you've got to you've got to just break federal law to be involved in this. It's one of the risks you take. But you've got to follow all the state laws because they're typically you come after you are targeted because we were a big fish. So I learned that you really have it. You've got rules you can follow, follow them and going through the system. What I figured out, I had the perspective of representing cops. I knew what that was about. But when I went through the system and found out how it's just warehousing and they hire incompetence to warehouse you in these private prisons and it's all designed just to make corporations money and oh yeah, they'll take care of you. They have to have some court tells them to. But, you know, it's it's a hustle to make a buck and then you're cut loose with these disabilities of being a felon. So part of what I do is devote a lot of time to social justice issues. I don't represent them so much anymore, but I do work with other groups to help get people in social equity positions to help erase these criminal records and rearrange some of the past, because it was important to me I promoted Prop 64 for its social I mean, its criminal justice revisions. And to this day, I stand by that decision, even though we're in just a horrible mess out here from the results of regulating this, the criminal justice tradeoff to me has longer term implications for the war on drugs and a lot of other things. So now we're trying to deal with the problems from what we call Prop 64 out here in California, where licensing and regulations and taxing are just so horribly expensive. And it's thrown a wet blanket on the industry right now.
[00:10:05] I'm curious that you mentioned the beginning, this sort of the issue of war or the dynamic factor of your economic social status and how that kind of impacted or affected the likelihood of, you know, being prosecuted. And I'm curious if you feel like that extended into the actual incarceration experience that like you do, you feel like I'm sure as a horrible experience, but do you feel like your economic and social status changed your. Variance vs.. You know, these you know, hundreds of other folks that ended up in the same situation that may have been from a different cultural and economic background. Did you think that played a part or do you think that was a factor in it?
[00:10:39] Well, it was a factor in getting me assigned to a a low level facility. Yeah. And once I was there, because of my education and background, I was put in positions where I was in charge of things. And I did a lot of teaching in there. And they allowed me to do that, which was good for my soul to survive the experience. But I was in, I think, eight or nine different places. I was sent by Con Air. I was sent by bus. We call it diesel and kerosene therapy. So it didn't help me a bit. When you're shackled and handcuffed at the waist and setting up a plane for five hours to Honolulu just for the same group to come back nine, nine days later. And it's just a way to fill a plane up. None of it helped me that that experience was eye opening. And then coming out of prison, what I have really become acutely aware of is the impacts on families. And that once you have a disability like a felony and I told you, I was just in the process of trying to move here. And because I'm a felon, it creates horrible handicaps. I've tried to find decent housing and I'm still a well-educated, white professional male. Yeah. All those things that you think would give you all the legs up, but know that disability is real. And if you're not skilled, if you're not white, if you're not male, if you don't have a socioeconomic background or the resources or even the understanding of the big system, then you are gonna be prey.
[00:11:57] Exactly. And tell me. I mean, I guess, you know, on one hand, you know, we can kind of look this and say, well, you know, it was it it was a an odd time, you know, when when the stuff is still getting worked out.
[00:12:07] There was a lot of confusion. The legal system didn't really know how to work. The policing system was a little askew. I guess how much do you feel like this is still a real risk for people in the cannabis business versus, you know, we've kind of things have cleaned up and and that's really not likely at this point. What's your take on it?
[00:12:23] Well, it's probably got some layers to it. Well, before I went in, there was absolutely no protection from the federal government. The RACHED decision took away all the power of any state to fight the feds when a federal enforcement. So that is still a risk. But while I was in Dana Rohrabacher and the Rohrbacher Far Amendment came out to prevent spending, he couldn't get Congress to change the laws, but you could take away the economic ability to enforce them. And then we got the coal mimolette of the second Obama administration. We saw some things begin to happen to give us some protections. A federal court stepped in and the Macintosh case stopped a prosecution because of what led to spending more money. So we've got some things on the books, but these are continuing resolutions that give no long term protection. The politics of this at the federal level are being helped by him because they've got to do something now hip. The floodgates are open. Cops can't tell him from pot anymore. And they're just doing things that are breaking some of these these walls down. But in and around all this has been laissez faire capitalism. Call it the unregulated market, black market, whatever you want. It's unregulated. It's laissez faire. It has no concern for the health, safety, welfare of anybody. It's all about making money. That's the greed part that I'm seeing in the transition from the unregulated, the regulated, the black market mindset. We're gonna make a quick buck. We're gonna do as much as we can to get rich is anathema to setting up and running a sustainable, profitable business in this kind of a changing environment. It's one of those overarching concerns I have when I set businesses up to look at the ethos and the path those of the control groups. Who are these people and where's your head?
[00:14:02] So talk to me about the work that you're doing now. I mean, primarily helping entrepreneurs, business leaders with setting up corporations. What part of the industry are you primarily dealing with? Are there sort of a growth chain? Are you dealing with and what are you learning in the process?
[00:14:16] Whilst I was released from federal supervision two years ago. So as soon as they started Lycee in California, I got involved in helping with that. We got some temporary licenses, went to provisionals, but I was also lobbying the local jurisdiction up here. That's conservative. We helped get a ballot initiative passed and now we are going into licensing for unrestricted cannabis activity up here. To the extent that they're going to allow everything between cultivation and the dispensaries to be unlimited, they've capped cultivation at a certain number and the dispensaries a certain number. Everything in between is wide open. Our first efforts are in taking properties and developing them into what we call cannabis operations, where there could be up to 2 acres of canopy with nursery processing and some ability to transport to other places your your nursery products and for processing. Those are like doing a small housing development. So we're starting from the beginning with what's your aspirations? We bring in an intellectual property guy to start setting up. There are trade secrets and capturing intellectual property and getting in D.A.s in place as you talk at every. Level decide on the business entity centered upstart training the managers and directors on what that means to be compliant. While we're addressing the concerns of the local jurisdiction for pulling permits and getting the property permitted to have a cannabis operation and then the business setting up doing the build outs and specifically building it for their aspirational goals, the county has said we're going to allow you to do. We just started that with think we got five teed up right now. The first ones in the formal process and we're learning because this county has never done it before and they're trying to do it in a way that follows their rules, but actually tries to assist people. It's not easy. It's a difficult task.
[00:16:09] What's actually involved in the municipalities. So I think everyone's, you know, focused on these federal laws and the state laws.
[00:16:15] But when it comes down to actually operating, starting and operating a cannabis business, you have to do it within a particular jurisdiction or particular physicality. County like what does that process look like typically or what would an entrepreneur or a business owner? What should they expect in terms of the process they're going to go through? Timeframe. You know, some of the things they're gonna have to navigate when it comes to actually setting up a cannabis business.
[00:16:36] Well, I can speak specific about California, but there are implications across the entire country because there isn't the same or similar circumstances everywhere. We have 58 counties and four hundred and thirty nine cities, something like that. Each of them is an individual jurisdiction and dating back to the eighteen seventy nine here in California, cities and counties were given tremendous local jurisdictional power to stop the legislature from interim interfering in their in their affairs. So under California law, you have to get a local permit or authorization before you can apply for your state license. So each jurisdiction has the ability to say, no, we won't allow it here or we'll allow only so much. And so local politics becomes crucial to understand what is the local social beliefs about this and how is that play out in the legal way? As far as authorizing this, going through your planning commissions, we have a huge environmental issue in California. So our environment laws are becoming one of the biggest factors to deal with here. The unregulated market is just did horrible environmental damage dolt. They took water out of streams of the ground they poisoned while let to cut down trees. They left trash everywhere. And so there's there's a feeling on the party's regulators that we're going to watch closely as we build out to make sure you don't violate these environmental laws. And that's expensive. It takes a lot of time. So if you're coming into this with a mentality, I'm going to make a quick buck. And I call it like, well, the black market mentality is rolling dice. The real business mentality is playing chess. And so far, a lot of people still want to roll dice and cut corners and send stuff out the side door to make extra money or to pay their bills. And that's not a long term sustainable model.
[00:18:21] And that is that where most most of these businesses are running into problems, where they're they're either inadvertently or advertently looks like not not following regulation or doing things that are at risk from a legal and regulatory point of view.
[00:18:33] Well, what I can tell you is every business I've looked at, from representing, from being a mediator, from being an expert in cases, every one of them is doing something that's that's not OK. Per our regulations or our laws, every one of them I don't want is bootstrapped. Then everybody's breaking the rules. But I hear from other people in my same or similar situations that because of the thinking from the unregulated market, if there's an opportunity to make a quick buck as you're trying to do this. Other thing, though, the chess playing, they take the opportunities and now the turkey are coming home to roost because we have this computer system set up that keeps very close tabs of product moving around. And before that, it was all on paper. And, you know, paper can be corrected or changed or altered. But, you know, you leave footprints in the system and you can't even screw with the system. It it is what it is. You make a mistake in putting. You got to explain it. So trying to make that leap. And when they show up with an audit that our tax people are popping into these business, especially the lynchpins, like the distributors and the places where a lot of cash comes in, these retail stores, they show up, they want to see your books. And when they do that, it gets ugly real quick.
[00:19:46] Meet me. They're coming in onsite audits where they're saying, I want to see your records. I want to look at your inventory. I want to actually, Paul, around in the business itself.
[00:19:53] Well, I have a colleague who runs a distributor business and cultivation and some retail. And they showed up by they I mean, the state showed up to investigate the distribution business. And he wasn't even open that day that it was closed. He had people there to help him do an inventory. And they showed up and wanted to see, as the rules require, that you show me the piece of paper for every bit of inventory you have. Well, he didn't have it.
[00:20:21] Why and why not? Like, what was.
[00:20:22] Well, that that's where, you know, they start fighting about, you know, black Barkha Battal. Was substantially in compliance? No. The rules says you got to have that piece of paper there. So when they showed up and they couldn't verify all the it went to quarantine. And it literally was 60 to 70, 80 thousand dollars in attorney's fees later to get it back at a quarantine because there wasn't that piece of paper there. And that's not the most extreme example. But there are real downsides when they show up and ask you, have you followed the rules and you get that sort of stupid look on your face like you just got your kid with their hand in the cookie jar. The answer now is, well, OK, now you this product is quarantined and you could be hundreds of thousands of dollars, a product which you need to pay your bills. So I'm trying to caution people that they give you a chance to know the rules. No, I mean, follow them. You know, we have a we have a place today where I never could have been 20 years ago when I started doing this or even more. And 20 years ago, there were no rules I could follow. We were literally making them up. Working with the state and local jurisdictions to verify that you'll abide by our agreement not to enforce in these areas. That was as good as we got. Now you can read them. There's pages. Read them. If you don't like what it says, don't get in the business.
[00:21:35] Yeah, I mean, it sounds like some of this is I mean, you have to follow the rules, but B, you have to be able to demonstrate quickly and clearly to regulators that you're following the rules. So it's not just, you know, are you or are you following the letter of the law? It's being able to demonstrate that when you need to so you get shut down.
[00:21:50] Well, compliance is a huge problem by, say, we a year or so ago, I set up some businesses and I couldn't I asked who's going to run them. And I got to know the dumb blank looks back. Well, I don't know. Well, somebody better. So we did workshops with directors, officers, compliance people, operations people. It was a 10 week session where I put like 40 hours into these people to teach them. This is what a C Corp an LLC is. This is what the regulations are. This is what insurance is. This is a contract. This is how you have a board meeting. So they were prepared to even speak the language. The regulators were going to require them to speak when they showed up. And we're doing that again now as I set businesses up. I will be training that people are going to run them. And that's one of the understandings I have with the local jurisdiction that the people I bring forward will be vetted, that they'll know what they're doing, you know. And I don't know. No kid gloves here with them if they screw stuff up, you know, they were told not to do that. But it's a difficult process now because you have to meld a traditional business mentality with the mentality of growing cannabis and saw the history of that. If you don't bring that together successfully, then it's a real problem.
[00:23:02] And I agree. I mean, that's one of the reasons we have this podcast is because it's this kind of intersection of, you know, knowing cannabis, the history of the culture, the you know, that the nature of the plant, the cultivars. I mean, there's this whole kind of cannabis culture, cannabis history, cannabis business side of it. And then there's, you know, how to run a successful business. And I think more and more we're just seeing the the limiting constraint in the cannabis industry, just having, you know, do we have enough professionals that have good or good business acumen, good business experience that can actually run and operate these businesses as they begin to grow and scale into, you know, major entities? I mean, these are these are significant companies now that are doing this stuff. I mean, I guess there you see one of the things I've noticed is people coming outside of the cannabis industry, you know, kind of adjacent industries, whether it be agriculture or pharmaceutical, you know, operational things coming into the cannabis industry. And it's not easy, you know, understanding or getting into this cannabis phase. Well, I guess what have you seen in terms of people that have been able to enter the cannabis space that have, you know, significant knowledge, capability, experience in some other industries? Have you seen people be able to get into this space, successfully navigate it? You know, those that haven't. Why that anything you've noticed on that side in terms of development of the industry?
[00:24:10] Well, I have. And one of the biggest problems we're seeing right now is that the early entry into this were from people that had less on the business acumen side and more on the the old school unregulated industry mindset. And as they were pushing forward, they were attracting investment. And now as we get to a point where you really have to have a solid business plan that's not based on unicorns and rainbows, based on realities that you're finance, that you understand, you're going to bleed money, that you're probably not going to make money for a year or two, that you're prepared to do that. We're seeing massive layoffs in the industry here in California right now. We're watching some of these bigger groups. And I'm going to mention screaming Mad Men as one that looks like it's headed for a brick wall right now. And the people running the business were taking a lot of money out by way of salaries and things like that, putting money into investments that in the long term just aren't working out and really didn't do the chess game. Well, you know, I mean, they were rolling the dice.
[00:25:17] Man, I'll take a million dollars a year for as long as I can. And then what? Leave wreckage behind? And another thing that is coming is that money's been raised and. Have you ever dealt with people from the black market? But they'll tell you anything that they think you want to hear to sell their product? Well, when you go out and start attracting investors and you take their money and it turns out that you were blowing smoke up there, but the S.E.C., if you're in public, but in civil court, you're gonna get sued for fraud, misrepresentation. And there's so much money that's just bleeding right now because incompetents were allowed to convince people to throw money at something. You know, it that paradigm will not work anymore. It requires that you bring together a team that you identify. What are your aspirational goals, how do you get there realistically? And if you don't have that kind of money and that kind of a group to shepherd that kind of money, then let me know. I'll take some of it or let's start a bonfire with it. Otherwise, you're just wasting your wasting people's money.
[00:26:19] Who cares what you see kind of coming down the pike here? I mean, we're there's a couple of bills in Congress that I don't think are going to go anywhere quickly. But we're starting to see some activity on the federal level to change some of these federal laws and the federal dynamics, whether it's, you know, banking and regulatory and legal issues and scheduling and stuff and anything in there that you think is likely to happen or is going to have particular impact on the industry, things that you're watching out for. You suggest people really need to keep track of that could impact their business.
[00:26:46] There are several initiatives in the Congress right now. One of them is to address the banking and others to address the IRS problems to 80 E problems and only being able to subtract cost of goods sold. There's also some initiatives on the House side to try an D schedule to. The concept is to remove cannabis from the Controlled Substances Act and put it into something like ATF, where they have more experience with products that used to be called Visy's, if you will. Alcohol and tobacco especially. And dealing with the legacy usage from that. Put it in there. I see those are in the house right now. And one of the encouraging things is that marijuana, if you will, that you'll use that term is part of the public debate. Now, it doesn't like you're talking about leprosy or child molesters anymore. It is. Yeah. Cannabis policy. We all recognize people of color were disproportionately affected by this. You're not going to stop people from smoking pot. I don't care what rainbow you try to throw out and there's no magic wand. This is hard work. But one of the bigger concepts is that paradigms like this change. Sometimes it takes a long time, but then big things will happen. And so underlying what's in Congress right now is I'm part of an appellations committee with an international cannabis bar association. We see that trying to get intellectual property rights and build upon the legacy as the interstate international controls begin to change. That's building already. The number of states that allow this has changed the entire mindset. And eventually Congress is going to get they're going to get the memo.
[00:28:19] And right now, because of the polarization in Washington, there's actually some Republicans who were trying to push this as a hot button political issue. Quite frankly, we'll take all the help we can get. Exactly. Cynically. Well, but it it's a money-making venture. People are going to smoke pot. It's been going on since Hector was a pup. And now there's a way for this to be turned into a legitimate business. It's not going to be the roll your dice and make the millions who used to. But it's a long term sustainable, much like alcohol. My family was in the alcohol business at a retail level, so I grew up seeing that. And when you lived in that arena and you're looking down the road to what this might eventually get to, then it's going to take a federal change so that it's not having the DEA show up, going to be more of a tax issue and that interstate commerce can allow it to flow through interstate highways and maybe it can't be sold in your jurisdiction, but it can certainly pass through. And then at the international level, we see that they're working towards change the international convention. So it's it's a soup here that's kind of boiling. And we're I'm trying to work with a lot of groups to make sure the ingredients are ready when we get the big paradigm shift at a Congress that, OK, stop playing these stupid games and put it someplace where we can actually turn this into an industry that things are ready to pop. So that's what I'm watching.
[00:29:37] Del, that's been a pleasure. We're gonna hit time here if people want to find out more about you, about the work that you do. What's the best way to get that information while you can?
[00:29:44] Visit my. My email is DaleSchaeferLaw at Gmail.com. And certainly look me up. We have a Web site. Mike, my daughter is my I.T. person. After going to prison, I might, as I told you, find a challenge before. And so but that you can get all of us that way. You can Google me. Me. I am an licensed attorney in California. I'm happy to talk to people to help in a way I can. Yeah, I'm happy to come back and chat with you some more.
[00:30:10] Yeah, no, absolutely. This world is changing so quickly that I'm sure not too long. We didn't have a whole new conversation about the state of affairs. Yeah. Bizzaro. Yeah. This afternoon. Yeah. It's it makes it both challenging but also fun. I'll make sure that all your you are ls and the email address and everything is in the show. People can click through and get that this was a pleasure and they all thank you for sharing your story. I know it was a difficult one. You know, the work that you're doing today I think is really important. And I thank you for it. So it's been a pleasure to talk to you. All right. You have a good day now. OK. Thanks.
[00:30:20] You've been listening to Thinking Outside the Bud with Business Coach Bruce Eckfeldt to find a full list of podcast episodes. Download the tools and worksheets and access other great content. Visit the Web site at thinkingoutsidethebud.com. And don't forget to sign up for the free newsletter at thinkingoutsidethebud.com/newsletter.