Real Cannabis Entrepreneur Conference Features Psilocybin/Magic Mushrooms Developments
The Real Cannabis Entrepreneur Conference was held this year with a significant psychedelics feature with panels and speakers on medical psilocybin or magic mushrooms legalization.
Psychedelics like cannabis are seen as healing plant medicine. So, it’s a natural fit.
The two-day conference saw many discussing their experience in business at the speaker-heavy conference, which, unlike most, had few companies tabling.
NJ Cannabis Business Tips and Progress
Real Cannabis Entrepreneur Conference Founder Gary George moderated the event with great showmanship and offered sales tips between introducing speakers. He also explained his background as an underground legacy to legal operator.
Gary also gave a shout-out to cannabis home grow legalization.
“If you really care about the patients, home grow will be at the top of the list. We gotta push Jersey on home grow!” he exclaimed.
George commended Lefty Grimes of Sativa Cross, who was tabling, for advocating for home grown legalization.
Real Cannabis Entrepreneurs Featured
Among the speakers, Tara “Misu” Sargente of Blazin’ Bakery described her experience launching a new manufacturing company Green Alchemy. She explained she bootstrapped Blazin’ Bakery to produce accessories to bake weed brownies and other edibles. Green Alchemy will be her company in the licensed NJ cannabis market. Tara Misu also explained she successfully engaged in crowdfunding to raise money.
Amidst the speakers, Spark Tank, like Shark Tank, was a fun feature to see someone pitch their company. Longtime Real Cannabis Entrepreneur conference speaker consultant David Cunic and investor Ben Richardson provided feedback as the sharks. Piff Cloud Vapor Company CEO Aaron Thurman said he was looking for investment to expand his company.
In addition, underground legacy to legal entrepreneur Mario Ramos of I Bud You and the Tri-State High Society podcast was featured.
“I’m opening a dispensary in New York. As Con Bud, I’m opening up!” He said to applause.
Ramos’ dispensary will be near Yankee Stadium in the Bronx.
ConBud is a small company with underground legacy to legal operators using franchise deals to expand its business.
It is a common way national corporate chains are built.
Tauhid Chappell was also there to promote the newly opened online NJ Cannabis Training Academy (NJ-CTA) to help those seeking legal cannabis licenses.
The many cannabis entrepreneurs at the conference included several minority and female entrepreneurs with licensed businesses that are open. So, they are in a much better position than they were a year ago.
Others were persevering. Some had second winds in their sails with good news in the complicated process of getting an NJ cannabis business license.
Psychedelics Overview Discussion Held
A panel overview of psychedelic legalization was held with a range of distinguished speakers pictured above.
The New Jersey legislature has made progress in legalizing medical psilocybin recently. So, it’s a natural fit.
Noted advocate and businessman Gaetano Lardieri moderated a panel with attorney Andrew Cooper, Dr. Maurice Hinson, patient advocate Alex Brass and Dr. Denise Rue.
“We saw a movement away from the decriminalization … to the therapeutic piece,” Cooper noted about the NJ medical psilocybin or shrooms legalization bill.
He thought psychedelics as medical therapy would progress faster than cannabis because there aren’t adult-use cannabis recreational concerns.
“Cannabis is life-changing, no doubt. Psychedelics are life-saving,” Cooper declared.
Gaetano was optimistic it would be legalized in the next two years.
Natural Versus Synthetic Psychedelics
“In what other capacity can you get the nerds and the geeks and the scientists and the doctors and the goons in one setting to discuss one product?” Hinson asked. He explained cannabis and psychedelics unite these different groups.
“Psychedelics … actually get to the root of the problem,” he declared. “There is not one thing in the market that comes close to the power of psychedelics.”
“The most basic risk is just having a bad trip. You’re having delusions. The dose is too high, or you’re in the wrong environment,” Hinson noted.
Hinson explained that a lot of pharmaceutical pills lead to a lot of negative side effects.
Proposed NJ Medical Psilocybin Treatment Explained
Denise Rue of the NJ Psychedelic Therapy Association explained how therapy at psilocybin clinics would work.
“It is getting more and more medicalized,” she said. “There will be a few conditions people can qualify for. If you have depression, perhaps anxiety, PSTD, maybe OCD, maybe addiction.”
Rue said a regular doctor will have to write you a prescription for it.
“A Service Center is a 3-part thing. You have to come to get screened,” she explained.
Those with severe addictions and mental health issues will likely be disqualified.
When someone comes in, there will be a 1-hour preparatory session first. The medicine session will be 6 to 8 hours.
“In Oregon, they cap it at 5 grams,” Rue said about the dose.
She said someone would be wearing an eye mask while lying down.
“You will be with a licensed facilitator,” Rue noted.
They can help deal with a bad trip.
The 3rd part is a psychedelic integration session where you process breakthroughs, insights, and mystical experiences to feel better long-term.
“In Oregon, a session is about between 1600 to $3400. Most of the Service Centers are required to offer a sliding scale. In New Jersey, this isn’t going to be accessible to most people,” Rue noted.
That’s why a flourishing underground legacy shrooms business and culture is good at providing access and filling market demand.
Rue explained that the therapy involves a strong dose to go inward and do deep work.
“Usually, you’re trying to access the core wounds, the root of the issues,” she said.
Big Pharma is Watching
Cooper noted you can’t patent natural shrooms.
“Big pharma is out there, and they’re watching this. They’re trying to figure out a way to protect and patent a product and then use as much money as they can to market it,” Cooper said. “They’re always financially motivated.”
He noted corporations are trying to make synthetic psilocybin.
“Big Pharma is going to cut out their lane. You’re not going to stop it. However the Psilocybin Service Centers are going to be available. Gaetano argued.
“There’s quite a few patents pending in this arena,” Cooper noted.
Rue said the Psilocybin Service Centers use natural magic mushrooms grown by mushroom farmers.
Personal Psychedelics Treatment Stories Featured on Panel
A second psychedelics panel was held the next day, moderated by Jesse Marie Villars of the Baked By the River dispensary in Lambertville. She also gave a speech as a successful example of underground legacy to legal cannabis operator.
The panelists were Tara Misu, Estefanie Valencia of Sanna Ohana and Hud Haus dispensary, cultivator Shayla Cabrera of Tia Planta, and Jon “Dirty Dank” Frank of the Beast Coast experience.
“Cannabis kind of paved the way,” Tara Misu said in terms of the politics of legalization.
She noted there are more non-psychedelic mushrooms like Lion’s Mane, which that are helpful too.
“I advocate for home grow and for people of color to enter this market,” Cabrera explained. “I love mushrooms.
She added she grows them too.
Dirty Dank noted he explains cannabis consumption to people.
Villars noted he trained her dispensary clerks or budtenders.
Healing Trauma with Magic Mushrooms
Dirty Dank noted that psychedelics encourage humility and forgiveness, which is healthy. He explained he used them to help recover from opioid addiction.
Cabrera endorsed microdosing while taking a small amount.
“I wanted to get in touch with my ancestors and feel how I could channel that power into my future,” she explained.
Cabrera said a macro dose helped her do so.
“I had that moment of surrender,” she noted. “I just asked for the strength to go through the hardships of life.”
Cabrera explained she consumed a lot of shrooms as a macro or dose, which helped her heal during the pandemic.
Valencia said dosing varies per person.
“It’s really not weight dependent,” she noted. “Healing is very multi-dimensional.”
Valencia said one’s intention is very important for a trip.
“It’s like opening up a book of yourself. What you do with this information is really going to dictate where you’re going to go afterward,” Valencia explained.
She said it is not a cure-all.
“You’re going to have to put in that work,” Valencia said. “Journaling is part of that. Mediation, breathwork, yoga, these are all things that help with that neurogenesis.”
“We all have childhood traumas,” she explained. “That reprogramming comes after.”
Valencia said a daily health routine like meditation and expressing gratitude is important.
Big Psychedelics Coming
“Enjoy this period of psychedelics. It’s fun, and it’s not going to last. I’m going to be on a panel with all attorneys in a couple years,” Tara Misu noted.
She noted some of the underground legacy shroom brands might sell shady products.
“We’re all in that Wild West before things are safe and regulated,” Tara Misu noted.
Amanita Muscaria Shrooms Explained
She explained that Amanita Muscaria is a powerful mushroom seen in “Alice in Wonderland” and other media.
“It has to do with Santa Claus. That’s why it’s it red and white,” Tara Misu said.
She noted the close connections between Santa Claus and magic mushrooms and shamans in the Arctic were amazing.
Tara Misu sells them since amanita muscaria shrooms are legal. But they are not as profoundly insightful as psilocybin shrooms. They are fun, though in her experience.
“If it’s your first time, don’t go it alone,” she noted.
Cabrera said it’s easy to grow magic mushrooms at home and encouraged people to do so.
“When you see this industry start to evolve, which it will very quickly. You’ll have the skills to jump in and get a high-quality position in whatever pharmaceutical company wants to come in and take hold of the market. Cause you know that’s what happens,” she noted.
“Find a trusted source,” Dirty Dank advised. “If you can find a Psychonaut, get one and bring them along for the ride.”
“How this industry is going to shape, and the accessibility of this life-saving medicine for folks is really going to depend on how our State legalizes it,” Villars noted. “We are on the precipice of a new industry. And we need more advocates to demand accessibility… legacy representation, Indigenous representation, the way this fungi has always been used.”
“We need to bring the people to fight back (against Big Pharma),” she explained.
