Kristen Nichols, Editor, Hemp Industry Daily
Kristen is the editor of Hemp Industry Daily, where she leads coverage of the hemp and CBD industries. Previously, she worked at the Associated Press for nearly 20 years. She started covering the marijuana legalization movement in 2009 – when medical stores started popping up around Denver – and wrote about the state’s first legal hemp harvest. Kristen also covered agriculture and politics in Maryland and her home state of Georgia.
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.
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[00:01:02] Welcome, everyone. This is Thinking Outside the Bud. I'm Bruce Eckfeldt. I'm your host. And our guest today is Kristen Nichols. She is editor at Hemp Industry Daily. We're going to talk to a little bit about what's going on in the hemp industry relative to the coveted 19 to the Corona virus, a situation that we're end up the pandemic, how it's impacting obviously not only everyone pretty much in the world and certainly here in the U.S. with kind of the changes that are happening to stay at home. Shelter in place policies that are being instituted really across the country at this point, but really kind of understanding how it's affecting the industry and how the industry is responding and talking a little bit about some of the programs that are available. I think most people have heard all the legislation that's being passed at the federal level to help off shore up the economy. Hopefully speed up recovery. We will get to that point. It's a lot of programs, a lot of funding, a lot of money, both loans, grants, things like that, and kind of understand a little bit about what's applicable to the hip industry, what what's being used, and then talk a little bit up in general how that happens.
[00:01:56] She is responding and what kind of conversations are going on in the space to kind of understand like what might be happening in the coming months, how people are kind of thinking about their position, maybe sort of strategic responses that people are anticipating or at least questioning. So I'm excited about this. I think there's you know, obviously it's a horrible situation from a public health point of view. And we're trying to figure out how the industry is funding and hopefully create some content, create some insights for people to help navigate the situation. So with that, Carson, welcome to the program. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah. So why don't we start with a little bit understanding your background, how you got into the hemp industry, and we'll talk a lot about what you do for hemp, a tree daily, get in some of these topics, but give us a story. What was your background and how did you get into this space?
[00:02:36] Ok, I'm a AG reporter, longtime ag reporter. Got into cannabis as a lot of people do, because they kind of get sick of their old line of work. OK. So I am the editor of Health Industry Daily where a sister publication of Marijuana Business Daily. So I was a covered cannabis in court. I'm in Colorado. I started covering the marijuana industry around 0 8 0 9. I was the AG reporter who came to Colorado and discovered that Colorado doesn't really grow a lot. Kind of a it's a ranching mining state, which I found boring. So when the marijuana industry started taking off in 0 8 0 9, I was real interested because I'm interested in its plants, its agriculture, its flora culture, really. And I have been covering that and then knew the folks at Marijuana Business Daily. And we started a hemp vertical and it started in 18. And the reason is, as your listeners know, you guys know they're kind of different. Have been marijuana. Of course, the same plant, but there's different business impacts, different things that affect them. This crisis that we're talking about today really drives that home. Yeah, there are different pressures, different challenges and different opportunities on both sides. So I cover, of course, still marijuana sometimes, but I really focus on the hemp side and how that market is different.
[00:03:54] Yeah. And maybe let's just kind of help listeners understand a little bit of the difference because. Yes, I mean, it's the same sort of the same plant, technically. You know, hemp is really a definition that it's created from a legal situation around this kind of point. Three percent THC level classifies it as hemp, which now fits under the farm bill. I mean, give people a little more details of why the designation of hemp is important from an industry and kind of regulatory legality point of view. Why do we have this distinction in the industry here?
[00:04:21] Sure. You point out it's legal and regulatory. It's important to remember for the plant, it's all phony baloney macaroni. There is no difference. It's like asking how rigid or roseby or how pure it is a golden retriever have to be before it's a purebred. I mean, it's kind of means nothing to the plant. It's the same plant. Of course. However, going back several decades, nations around the world, including the United States, Canada and all of the European nation states decided that there should be a level of THC below, which it's not intoxicating. It can't be used as a drop hemp. Of course, cannabis, it's all one plant, a very old plant. Folks thousands of years ago figured out, hey, take the dudes out and smoke the flowers. It feels good. So then they started kind of just like weed, just like humans do with every plant. They started really growing for that. So hemp has been grown for thousands of years. Some kinds of varieties are grown for these very intoxicating flowers that are high and THC. But governments have always acknowledged, hey. OK. Whenever you think about these high THC buds that people are smoking the plants bigger than that. And there's there's varieties. It should not be considered a controlled substance or intoxicating at all. And that's what we think of as hemp. The difference between hemp and industrial hemp is they just added a word to make it set to really drive home. This is not gonna it you high again, same plant.
[00:05:43] But it's important to note this goes back to global drug treaties from the 60s and even earlier. I'm setting a THC standard, so it's in the law. It's 0.3 THC percent by dri- weight. That is a legal lie that we use. Again, it really means nothing. It's just that distinction between what is legal and what is not. Hemp was commonly grown in the early days of the United States became basically fell out of favor. People blamed the drug war, but really the industrial revolution hadn't quite to do with it. Rules placed by polyester and other fibers in fabrics and of course, the steam engine. We don't need we don't sail around the world anymore anyhow. So we slowly folks wanted to say, hey, why is all of cannabis illegal? There's a whole varieties that really can't really intoxicate you. So Congress has been slowly opening the door to these lower THC varieties. They blew the door wide open two years ago in a farm bill where they said, hey, if it's below zero point three percent THC by dry weight, it's not even it's not a controlled substance is the same as a corner potatoes. We're gonna regulate it that way. It makes a lot more sense and opened a lot of opportunities for folks growing those low THC varieties because as we'll discuss, there's a lot of advantage to being a federally legal commodity versus being an illicit commodity.
[00:07:01] Yeah. So now with the farm bill, the hemp production is now federally legal or it's not illegal, it's not a controlled substance. So it's now open for growing and processing. How have you seen kind of the hemp market develop at this point? I mean, others lots of different applications of hemp, everything from kind of industrial product to fiber to use in various even kind of building materials and things like that. And then there's this CBD craze that's going on, which is, you know, an extraction of, you know, from the plant into a product that can be used in topically can be ingested in various ways. It is most of the U.S. hemp industry, basically seed production or what? How do you see a kind of the percentages or the use of em being played out right now?
[00:07:40] Ok. It is no exaggeration to say this legal change was absolutely seismic to the industry. Don't forget, American farmers are facing lots of headwinds, really low commodity prices in corn wheat. They got a huge trade war going on with China and soybeans. So you have farmers from dairy, from tobacco, from you name it, looking for a higher price commodity. On the other side, you have folks who have been growing illicit marijuana for decades, also wanting to come out of the illicit market and everybody rushing, rushing, rushing to make big money from this new crop. If you can grow pot in the basement, you can grow here. If you can grow tomatoes outside, you can grow hemp. So a lot of opportunity there right now. It's tough to say exactly how much is being grown because states keep track of what they license. They don't. I'll keep track of how much actually gets harvested. But right now, as far as we can tell, at least three quarters, maybe much more is going for flower production. That's CBD and other extracts to get from the flower. We think of the CBD craze. Almost all of it is flower production. So that's why I say it's more like flora culture, which is what marijuana is, too. Right now there's a lot of opportunity in things from fiber, in grain. We have like more like meat alternatives and grocery stores. There's like a company in Canada that has struck a big deal just recently with Georgia-Pacific, a big toilet paper maker. Do that is you can imagine. How do I'm pretty well right now. Yeah, they can. Non-weapons, however, most that side of the hemp plant, I would have to say it's mostly R&D. I think there's a lot of potential there. But right now, if you're a farmer, if you're an investor and you are looking at a, you know, six month, two year window, the money is in flower products like CBD.
[00:09:23] So so they're they're growing the flower processing that into some kind of some kind of consumable product either. Like I said, a topical or ingestible of various sorts. And while I've seen some kind of, you know, smokeable CBD, you know, hemp flower kind of thing is I think most of it's going into some kind of product. Sure. You know, teachers and things like that or being put into cosmetics and stuff. So given that that, you know, most of the industry is bucy flower, that which is being processed and put into these substances, what's kind of the impact over the last couple of months as this coronavirus has impacted the economy? Obviously, this sort of stay at home regulation's orders have been put in place, which is severely limiting, you know, not only workers being able to get to their places of employment and actually do the work, but, you know, people are not going to stores or not purchasing things in the same way. However, you kind of see in the industry be affected so far as we've gone into this coverts situation.
[00:10:20] I talked to a analyst yesterday who said for hemp producers, this is a crisis on top of a crisis. We've been talking about the CBD craze. As he bids, prices have really bottomed out. Supply and demand playing. They're playing its work here and there's too. It's interesting. Blessing and a curse difference for help producers, again, because they're legal. They can sell online easily and sell anywhere. Of course, there's lots of illicit products sold online, too, but it's easier for a CBD producers to sell online. So they're doing extremely well. Some are seeing really high sales, as you would imagine in a time of anxiety know in a time the whole nutritional supplements sector, whether it's like, you know, vitamin C or you name it, that whole sector is doing very well right now. However, at the same time, another advantage that CBD and hemp has is sold in conventional brick and mortar retail. So you're seeing retailers from convenience to grocery support now carries stuff, all kinds of department stores carrying stuff. Well, they're all set down. So those folks who have really invested in going into mainstream retail are seeing some real softness right now, as anybody is now. And another important point, there is a lot of folks who open either hemp, exclusive retail or CBD exclusive retail. If you drive driven around strip malls and seen this like weird CBD store. Yeah, there's a lot of those popped up and almost nowhere has designated those as essential services or things that are staying open. So any kind of CBD only retail, there's still CBD being sold through marijuana dispensaries in jurisdictions that still allow those to be open. But so I would say again, blessing and a curse. If you're selling a an e-commerce store, your CBD could be doing quite well depending on how much investment you made and brick and mortar retail. Really seeing some struggles right now.
[00:12:06] Yeah, it's interesting because I know a lot of states with medical and adult use, marijuana laws, you know, capabilities, most of them I know there's been a couple exceptions. Most of them designated them as a central. Businesses allow them to stay open, you know, albeit with the restrictions of six feet or, you know, curbside pick up and stuff like that. So it sounds like it.
[00:12:23] So if you're a CBD company who distributes through a dispensary, you may still see sales going on because these sponsors are staying open.
[00:12:32] But if you have a standalone CBD store or have being sold through, you know, convenience store kind of things that most likely you're seeing those retail locations shut down. I have seen or I've heard sort of anecdotally that those that are selling through like Whole Foods, you know, places that are deemed necessary and still then are still seeing sale. So it sounds like a little bit of the luck of the draw in terms of what your kind of retail strategy was, in terms of what your sales may be. And if you happened to go through a channel that's being shut down, you're kind of screwed. And if you happen to be going to a channel which is being deemed essential, you may actually still see product being moved.
[00:13:09] That's an important point. You're right. Grocery and retail. And we should also point out folks who are making grain varieties like granola and those kinds of the hemp products have been deemed essential by USDA. Anybody making food is essential and anybody making construction components, that's also essential. So if you are, again, the few folks who are making grain products, oils and stuff like that, not CBD oils, but cooking oils like canola type oils, they're essential and still able to do business, etc..
[00:13:39] We've got a I'm I'm recording on a New Jersey, Fort Lee, New Jersey, just across the street, my Manhattan or across the river from Manhattan here. And we've got a local coffee shop that's open because they they big bread and they make bread and they've they've somehow convince us that they're a central business because they married. So they've stayed open.
[00:13:54] So it's really interesting to sort of see how the retail side of this is based on the orders and how the orders get interpreted or kind of played out and what your retail strategy was, how that is. But online sales, I mean, if you're in online, if you're if you're selling online, which is legal, because as from a point of view, from a CBD point of view, you have an open channel. I mean, assuming, you know, assuming that things are getting delivered and you've got churn, you know, delivery capabilities, those are. Are you seeing. I mean, I guess I could imagine that with kind of the health concerns and people trying to boost their immune system and making sure they stay healthy as well as, you know, kind of this increased level of anxiety and the desire to kind of attenuate that to a certain degree, that that would imply or potentially create a situation where we're CBT sales are up or demand is up. Is that what you're seeing or are you actually seeing the data that says people are buying for those reasons?
[00:14:40] Yes, all of the above retail e-commerce sales are up across the spectrum, both CBD products and kind of omega rich. Anything that's like health and wellness right now, selling online, doing well. Absolutely. We're seeing companies reporting 25, 30 plus percent increases. Huge upticks, of course, in search terms. And people looking as people are, you know, as stuck at home on their phones, going and looking for things either to relieve anxiety or again, for possible immune protective purposes to boost their health and an immunity.
[00:15:13] Are you seeing any particular types of products? Because there's so many different formats. I mean, we've got these broadspectrum full spectrum. We've got these concentrates, you know, isolates and all this stuff. I mean, is there anything that you're you have enough data there to actually see which of these products are being actually a. Making a jump in sales.
[00:15:30] Not full or broad spectrum, though. That's funny you point that out because, boy, there's such intense controversy over which really is the best record Broadspectrum versus iswith. OK, but we had the only thing we can point to so far and this definitely comes through cannabis sales channels, marijuana sale. Shands And the same thing is happening the CBD you mentioned earlier. Smokeable Hemp, that is a growing trend, but we are definitely seeing folks moving away from smoking and vaping anything right now. Again, this is a disease that attacks your cardiovascular system. Folks are aware of that, concerned about that. So we're seeing folks choosing edibles, tinctures, topicals over anything you would burn in inhale. That is the vape sector. And the smoke sector don't have good numbers yet, but it does appear that folks are choosing edibles topicals over those.
[00:16:17] Yeah, I'm not surprised.
[00:16:18] I think the other thing that's driving that is people are second home, going home with your family and your kids and everything. You're not going to be running on, you know, smoke.
[00:16:26] You know, you're going to probably do a to church charitable just because of the situation, but kind of locked in a home situation, people in. But yes, fascinating kind of set of factors that are shaping not only in overall sales, but actually which products are coming out.
[00:16:39] Have you seen anything interesting you've seen in terms of how hemp producers, CBD producers are kind of responding to this, either in terms of sales strategies or product strategies or, you know, reaching customers, packaging things, things up, offers, discounts? I mean, what are some of the things that you see people trying to do to kind of adjust to the current situation?
[00:16:57] Of course, like you have other manufacturers and lots of especially as CBD oil producers pivoting to make hand sanitizers. One interesting thing we have not explored yet, but I think it's gonna be interesting to watch. We are starting to hear reports that so much ethanol is being given at the hand sanitizer use across manufacturing that we could see in effect, because ethanol, of course, is a hugely used in all kinds of extraction of THC and CBD products. Anyway, that'll be interesting. So anyway, but I feel like you can't find the CBD company anywhere right now that is not offering deals, discounts to first responders or folks trying to really tap into that anxiety that folks are feeling. Let us help you relax. Lots of cases of folks making donations of CBD products to health care providers who might be interested. It's also cool to see again back to these other uses. Food makers are making big, big donations of whole grain products to food banks and that kind of thing. That's very cool to see. Again, everybody's kind of on hold, wondering what this means for their business, but trying to address community concerns as best they can. And back to your point we were making about retail and your retail strategy in areas where maybe your retail strategy is that the brick and mortar store you had can't be open. We're seeing a growing number of doing curbside, even drone delivery of CBD things to reach their customers as best they can.
[00:18:20] Well, by all means possible, highly motivated, highly motivated sales. Have you seen it kind of looking down the supply chain and production chain? How is this affecting the actual cultivation and processing? I mean, ah, ah, processors and cultivators still operating.
[00:18:36] And are they are they are able to do they do they get designated as essential services and so they can stay open or how are they kind of handling that from just keeping operations going?
[00:18:45] Point of view.
[00:18:45] It depends what you're making. Some processors are open. Not all extractors are is really, but it's going to be huge even if this all goes away tomorrow on the farm. Right now, it would seem that not much is going on. However, now is the time of year. Farmers are deciding everywhere what to plant, what cultivars to use. What kind of inputs they can afford. Inputs are fertilizer, water, that kind of thing. Whether they pivot to let's say, you know, there has been a sector that's been really down for many years, whether the dairymen continue pivoting into hub or say, you know what? Right now, I'm trying to like focus on what I know how to do. Hemp is speculative for sure. And not a lot of guys had success last year. So I do think you're going to see some serious impacts to the supply chain down the road. Farms are very affected. A year ago, hemp was just made legal. Everybody's scrambling to get hemp expertise and start growing it. You have people even like offering free housing to attract people to rural areas to grow hemp. Not unusual really in AG, but kind of like that. We're not seeing that as much this year. Definitely. I think a scale back from big AG and the scale back even from the marijuana industry and to how much speculation they want to do on the hemp sector that they're not sure where it's going to shake out. As exciting as hampered CBD is, it's a brand new industry. So all of the volatility that even old industries are having now is really magnified in health. So I do think we'll see less production unless activity overall as the year goes on.
[00:20:14] And what I mean, given this kind of, you know, potential sustained demand for product and variable nature of the production side, I mean, you do you see, you know, big swings or big deficits, certain supply issues in the coming months. I mean, a. I guess when you think this is really going to impact with a third of the shelves, like how long is it take to go from, you know, farmers making choices about what they're going to plan and if they're gonna plan to actually showing up on whether we have product or the right product or the prices of product? What's that cycle look like?
[00:20:41] Probably nine months. I think we'll start seeing it this fall if folks really stop growing, producing. Don't forget, there's still a lot of lot of folks winterized their CBD. They couldn't sell last year and are still waiting for buyers. So I think we've got a lot of supply. I wouldn't worry about somebody running out anytime soon. The plant doesn't. It's a very, really short cycle plant. You can go from a clone to having usable product in less than six months. So it's not going to be. I don't think to a consumer that disruptive. I do think processors, farmers and investors are going to see some real disruption in the near term, but I don't know what it will look like on store shelves. One thing to point out is great is CBT and hemp is and as a lot of people find it, very essential. It's not essential like food, dairy, no water, essentials, that kind of thing. So if the overall economy is really we really are entering depression, a lot of folks out of work. A lot of folks it is. But it's not cheap. And you can imagine that consumers can choose not to invest in. So I think all of this is too soon to say. But smart companies are really thinking hard about where they want to play in this new market and how they can succeed and come out the other side.
[00:21:51] Yeah. I mean, do you think there's gonna be a kind of a shake down, certainly on the processing side where you know, now with, you know, people going through stores, you know, they're Winterreise CBD and meet demand not processing as much, you know, seeing real kind of peaks and valleys as that, you know, is that really going to hit the processors or one of the processors gonna do or are they going to pivot back into cannabis or other non cannabis related processing capabilities? How do you think that's going to affect that industry?
[00:22:12] I'm curious to see. You know, I don't know. There definitely are a lot of processors that could pivot back to THC products if that line of work is more steady. Are you're also before all this started, you were seeing a lot of processors getting too into CBG and other cannabinoids called minor cannabinoids that are less prevalent in the plant again to tap into new sides that weren't being used. I think it's too soon to say definitely, though we think there was a problem of not enough processing in all these new markets where you had farmers throwing EMPs even in the ground, not knowing where they were going to sell it. Not enough processors to process it. So maybe it's going to take some time to catch up. So we might see more processing, but at the same time, not as much more as we would if that makes us think it's going to adjust the products actually coming in.
[00:22:57] Because as you mentioned, the stuff is not cheap. I mean, you're you're looking at anywhere from 30, 40 dollars a bottle to, you know, $200 a bottle for some of these, you know, high potency tinctures and stuff like that. I mean, what do you think that's going to shape or do you think there's going to be a response in terms of what products actually get put on the shelves and how people kind of create consumables and the price points and concentrations and formulations and so forth?
[00:23:18] How do you think it's going to play out that way?
[00:23:19] Absolutely. I think folks are going to look to what they know from the other analogous industries are. And, for example, what I mean by that, if you're making a topical or a cosmetic product, you're going to look for industry trends in other ingredients that go in skin creams or face creams and how that market plays out. Do people stop buying face cream when the economy is bad? They're going to fall all those headwinds. I do think we could see where we could see a real quick change is kind of that, though. The low fruit add on right now. You mentioned the coffee shop right now, a lot of coffee shops, a lot of massage therapy places, a lot of places. We'll say, oh, for two bucks or four bucks. A we shot a convenience store selling a lot of these low price points, energy kind of looking like five hour energy type shots of CBD products. Those are kinds of things that feel kind of like impulse buy, checkout counter kind of buys. I think those could really be affected more than you see folks reducing. They are using CBD kind of more medically. Either they have epilepsy in the family or something that they're treating themselves and it's still find it more reasonable or more affordable than pharmaceutical preparations that are analogous. But it's going to be interesting to see if there's something else that happened just this week. Course business doesn't stop just because we're in a pandemic. Just this week, the DEA said that a certain kind of CBD in a pharmaceutical preparation is not a controlled substance. This sounds like super wonky, but it could lead to a lot more companies exploring pharmaceutical R&D, preparations of cannabis derived medicine that could really drive down the price there. Again, if you're spending one hundred dollars, 60 bucks a bottle for something that insurance doesn't cover, but maybe there are other options that insurance would cover that would be much more affordable. I think that we're going to see a lot of activity on that side of the market.
[00:25:09] Interesting. Yeah, I could imagine that's going to have a huge shift because if I can if I can classify it as a medical, you know, medical treatment that gets covered under insurance would be huge. So let's talk a little bit about some of these programs is I know that there's a lot of talk about, you know, the three trillion dollars or whatever the Senate as authorizer that the Congress has authorized and they're putting in place. And the. He people grammes and these government loans and things like that. I mean, I guess so my understanding is the if you're dealing in THC, a lot of these lot of these programs are not going to be applicable to you because you're technically dealing in a federally illegal substance. But for hemp and CBD, you should be able to do this. How you give us a little bit of background or sense of how these programs are applying to hemp versus, you know, marijuana production. You see production. How is that shaking out?
[00:25:54] Ok, well, big picture. It's a great time to love the alphabet because here we are with I. You mentioned B. Here we are with a million program. So here's the latest lay of the land. Congress so far has passed three separate measures to help the economy going in from going into total freefall. Of course, these are federal programs. They are trying to seek companies to avoid them having to lay off all their employees. This is federal money and goes only to things that are federally legal to where you point out. Hemp is marijuana, is it? We did make the rules. It's kind of silly, but that there we are. So if you're a ham producer, you are covered by U.S. years. There's USDA assistance. There's a lot of the assistance. What you mentioned, the paycheck protection program through the Small Business Administration, all of these things are programs for which hemp producers, hemp processors, hemp retailers, anybody in the hemp supply chain could be eligible for. The problem there is that if you ask how do I get this money? Of course, what they say is go to your bank. Well, go to your SBA lender. As you know, hemp companies, just like their marijuana counterparts, report big kinds of problems, finding banks, finding financial services. So I've been told that if you are in the business and can't find help, go to an SBA office and explain to them you can't find a bank to loan you money and they will help kind of grease the wheels.
[00:27:14] Because banks are not really into risk. And so right now, of course, everybody in every kind of business looking for loans, looking for the bank to give them a write him a check. Don't want to take any unnecessary risk. But I want to point out something pretty big that happened yesterday. In addition to the big package that Congress passed just here in early April, the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve released another three trillion dollars in something for Main Street lending and also direct payments to states. Now, that's really important to marijuana producers because they at least some like 500 billion to go straight to states. Now, the federal government is never going to give you any assistance if you're in the marijuana business. But a lot of states might. So it is really unclear where those state grants are going to look like. Will there be state programs to help businesses, small businesses and startups? I think you're going to see a lot of people starting to watch what those dollars, how those dollars get to the states, what the states do with them, because certainly if you are in a state that considers marijuana a legal product, this may be on the table for you with it had to come from your state government, not the feds. But that's all going to be interesting to watch.
[00:28:24] Yeah, a lot of things to play out. But there's actually I thought about that when I heard about this. I was reading about it this morning that the you know, the money that they're putting in and then how they're going to issue a assessment and not about the states now are going to set up programs for distribution and for a state that has a legal marijuana program that they could state could actually allocate money for that and make it available. Or is it? But otherwise, if you're a if you're a THC producing either, you know, cultivator, processor or dispensary, you're not eligible for the programs that were in place as a couple weeks ago. And it all is going through the banks. So at the end of the day, you need to work with your local bank if you don't have a bank. It sounds like the SBA is the place to go and they theoretically are going to help you get them. Have you talked with producers that have successfully completed the process? I mean, I guess so. We're I guess how much traction are you seeing? People actually are? I mean, are people taking advantage of it? And to what extent?
[00:29:12] I guess at this point, everyone's asking. And the answer is not yet. But this is all a week old. And I would say even if you're covering, you know, the potato business, you don't know of anybody who's gotten money in hand yet. So there are options available. Banks say they are overwhelmed every single day. The Small Business Administration tweets 10 times a day how many loans they've given out. Well, right now they're up to like 17000. Well, if you think about American businesses, that's a drop in the bucket. Right. And that includes everybody and every kind of business you could imagine. So I don't know if anyone that's gotten help yet. People say just give it time. Well, of course. Who has time? Nobody has time. Everybody who's trying to make payroll and, you know. Exactly. Pay mortgages and everything else. But so I think we're really watching really closely to see how this plays.
[00:29:58] Fascinating, because it's been a pleasure. And great information. I've talked about the hip industry a couple of different times with different folks, but this is definitely the most detailed one that I've had. So I really appreciate it. If people wanna to find out more about you, about hemp industry daily was the best way to get that information.
[00:30:11] Of course. Go to our Web site. Hemp industry daily dot com. It's all one word. You can also get to us through marijuana business daily dot com. And that we're on. You know, everybody else is maraud, Twitter and Slack and Instagram and everything else. Everyone's pivoting, of course, as. Companies are too trying to be more engaged online. So look for us wherever you look for any other business news and I appreciate very much you having us on.
[00:30:35] Yeah. No, just like us at does mean a pleasure letter, great information. And I'll look forward to kind of, you know, keeping in touch with you as things play out. May we do another interest episode as things kind of realize themselves? But it's really been a pleasure. Thank you for taking the time to do it.
[00:30:48] Happy to help. Thanks so much.
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