What Granny Knew About Cannabis That the Industry Still Hasn’t Figured Out With Robin Swan

Margaret 00:00:03 Welcome friends to episode 356. DIY is an act of rebellion with Robin Swann. You are in for a treat. Today I'm your host, Margaret, a certified Ganjier, a TCI certified cannabis educator, and I believe your kitchen is the best dispensary that you'll ever have. Welcome to Bite Me, the show about edibles. Something I've been thinking about a lot lately, is how the act of making your own cannabis at home has always been, at its core, a small act of rebellion and before legalization, before dispensaries, before influencers with card machines. People were growing cannabis in their backyards, extracting it in their kitchens, sharing it with their communities. And not because it was glamorous, but because it needed to happen and no one was going to give them the permission to do it. And this tradition didn't start with prohibition either. Today's guest, Robin Swann of Swann Apothecary, traces this medicine back through the through indigenous herbalism, through Ayurvedic texts, through the Ming dynasty, and through grandmothers. Two of them, specifically one in North America and one in Iran, both born in the 1800s, both using cannabis as medicine long before any government decided to restrict our access.

Margaret 00:01:18 Robyn is a structural integration neuromuscular therapist, a North American herbalist, a plant alchemist, and someone who will tell you, without blinking that disarming your weed is stupid. That made me sit up straight. She will also tell you that legality is a colonial construct put on top of a plant system of medicine that has been with us since always. And of course, we know that because in the United States, legalization had nothing to do with the fact that you got high from this plant, but more to do with the fact that it was a threat to cotton and paper industries. I love her. We talked today about what big cannabis gets wrong, why small batch actually means something which your kitchen can do that a spray gun never will. And what it really means to make your own medicine in a world that would rather sell it to you. This one's for the backyard alchemists and the kitchen witches. You know who you are. So let's get into it. Without further ado, please enjoy this conversation with Robin Swann.

Margaret 00:02:21 All right, everyone, I am joined today by Robin Swann of Swann Apothecary. And as we get into this conversation today, Robin, would you like to take a second and just introduce yourselves to the listeners of Bite Me a little bit about who you are and what you do with Swann Apothecary.

Robin Swann 00:02:40 Sure. Well, let me see. What I mostly do is cause trouble and break the law. So those are the things that are most dear to me. I've been formulating cannabinoid medicines for literally my entire life. And in I had a company called Firebird Touch Therapy. I'm a structural integration neuromuscular therapist with and a North American herbalist. And so I kind of rolled all of that experience and knowledge into my cannabis line. so that's kind of what I do. We work with people who are living with life threatening illness as well as debilitating pain. And then we also work with the psilocybin family as well, because it's an amazing element to work with people who have traumatic brain injury or compounded PTSD.

Margaret 00:03:23 Yeah, that sounds like you have a ton of experience in this industry.

Margaret 00:03:27 Have you found it challenging to be in the cannabis industry after moving from where you were previously?

Robin Swann 00:03:32 It is a cesspool. That is the kindest way to say it. Honestly, there's a lot of challenges within this industry which anybody who's in it, you know, doesn't like, explain it. It is pointless, but there's a lot of challenges. So yes, the simple answer is absolutely very.

Margaret 00:03:49 Yeah, yeah. Hence the causing trouble, which I'd love to hear anyway because cannabis obviously obviously comes from a tradition of challenging authority. So now you describe yourself as a plant alchemist with roots in indigenous herbalism. For someone who's learned about cannabis medicine from a very different tradition than what we have, you know, as far as modern infusion techniques go. What did that foundation teach you that the industry still hasn't caught up to yet?

Robin Swann 00:04:19 We are basically plants us human beings. So both of my grandmothers, my paternal and my paternal, were both indigenous women, one to North America and one to the the country of Iran.

Robin Swann 00:04:33 And they were both born in the 1800s and they both used cannabis as medicine. My North American grandmother, harvested wild hemp, and my Persian grandmother grew the most insane indica ever on the planet from those super Afghani Kush seeds. So coming to the cannabis industry, one of the things that I find really challenging is that people flip out of secular jobs, like, I used to be an accountant, and now I'm in the cannabis industry, and I feel like there is a real loss of understanding for what exactly the medicine of this plant is. This is yes, it is a plant, but it is a teacher plant and it sits in the center of the of the plant will. So it makes it a catalyst for other plants. So when it's combined correctly, it's able to synergize the energy of the other plants and then basically give it a superpower and make it much more available for us as human beings. Also, cannabis regulates herself. I just have to say that, you know, one of the things that I see in this industry, if you are out your integrity, if you are not doing good business or good medicine, you will get shut down because this plant is live.

Robin Swann 00:05:46 And she has been with us for always and since always on every single continent, on all continents and all indigenous cultures have used cannabis. And if you are out of alignment with her, she'll take your ass out. Period.

Margaret 00:05:57 Right. Karma is a bitch. I love that. Now, as far as, like the tradition that you grew up around, I think that's really cool. And you're suggesting that the indigenous tradition is that cannabis is at the center, and it works synergistically with a whole bunch of other plant compounds. And is that do you see as sort of missing from what we have today as sort of like the legal side of things?

Robin Swann 00:06:20 So, okay. Legality has nothing to do with this. And that is a colonial construct that is put on top of the plant system of medicine. So that's the only way I can answer that, because there's there's no regulatory body of how cannabis should be used, grown or distributed. That is just nihilism and capitalism.

Margaret 00:06:42 Yeah. Yeah. Well, I wouldn't disagree with you there, that's for sure.

Margaret 00:06:46 Now, as far as you and your work with Swan Apothecary. You bill, you make small batch ancient extraction techniques based around based on the lineage that you were just talking about, the experience, the knowledge that you have. What does small batch mean for you in the final product? That large scale production just can't.

Robin Swann 00:07:08 So we're we're not making more than 200 items at a time max. You know, somewhere between 50 and 200 items. So like if I'm making a tincture there, we're only going to make 200 max. So the difference between industrial is that they're moving through hundreds of pounds per of product per minute. And they're, you know, like let's just talk about the gummies. And this is called Bite Me. Okay. So a lot of the the edibles that are within the the dispensary are not infused. They're injected or they're sprayed. So if you've ever wondered why when you've gone and gotten some gummies or an edible from a dispensary, and one hit you like a train. And the other one, you're like, I didn't feel anything.

Robin Swann 00:07:53 It's because they're not infusing that cannabis product into the actual mixing of the product. They're either coming by with an injector and they're putting it into each piece of candy, or they're using a spray gun and they're spraying over it. So that way one candy could have 500mg and one can have ten. What we do is we actually we make food. So we incorporate the the concentrates through fat to make sure it breaks up correctly in the system. And then every gummy is basically weighed out so that the client knows that that's 20mg that they're eating and then they're individually wrapped.

Margaret 00:08:31 Right. Okay. And that makes it obviously a big difference, because you have that ability to pay attention to the quality control, which you can't do when you're just spraying edibles here.

Robin Swann 00:08:41 As soon as you get to corporate farming, it doesn't matter if we're talking about cannabis or corn, okay. As soon as we get to corporate farming, we lose a level of connection to what we are doing.

Margaret 00:08:51 Right?

Robin Swann 00:08:51 And what.

Margaret 00:08:52 We're in.

Margaret 00:08:52 Stop.

Robin Swann 00:08:53 Yeah. So that just that that's just across the board on everything. It's not just to the cannabis industry. It's how we treat our whole industrial complex of farming.

Margaret 00:09:02 So you're keeping things intentionally small so you can pay attention to what's going in to each and every edible so that when somebody buys one from you, they know if it says 20mg it's going to be 20mg.

Robin Swann 00:09:13 Right. Yeah. And also we're also dealing with like I know from seed to sale, every single person who's touched my product. And that includes the isolates that we use, like we know who the farmers are of the hemp over in the East Coast side of the United States. And where it's getting processed, there isn't anything that's coming through my doors, whether it's terpenes or cannabis or isolates or mushrooms, that I don't personally know, the cultivation of that product and how it was handled. So that is very different. So when you're in a when you're doing something like, you know, a big company that's in every single dispensary and doing whatever they're they're using entire crops and they don't even care.

Robin Swann 00:09:52 They're picking stuff up off the floor. I mean, they're just running all the garbage and everything. So, you know, in California we've had an issue with pesticides. And that's why our licensure is so strong. And that's why our labs are probably the most stringent in the entire United States. California has the standard of excellence as far as heavy metals and pesticides and other nasty stuff that could get into your flower.

Margaret 00:10:19 Yeah. I mean that totally makes sense to me because I, I used to I knew somebody that used to work at a, a cannabis. I don't know, I'm not sure what you would call but they are processing dried flower. And he would sometimes comment on the quality of said dried flower that was coming into this plant for them to process. And it was like, not great. That's all I can say. But they're processing it.

Robin Swann 00:10:43 It's about profit, right? So we are we are not a not for profit company. However, because this is and also this is not my first rodeo, I've taken many products to market from a flower list chocolate cake to a sex toy.

Robin Swann 00:10:57 So I've I've already been in the secular world before I came to cannabis. And so for me, my first initial clients were my actual already existing practitioner clients. It was very important to me that the standard of excellence was met, because I knew these people one by one, and it just took until it's only about two, maybe three years that I don't know every single person that's buying our product.

Margaret 00:11:21 Right? Okay. Yeah, I like that. The standard of excellence, I think, is something that when people find it, that's where they want to go to buy their things, whether it's in cannabis space or elsewhere, because it's just values aligned, I guess. And that's how I like to go about buying things when I do have to buy things. Now, we touched a little bit on the ancient extraction techniques. Can you talk a little bit more about what those look like versus what I might be doing in my own home kitchen?

Robin Swann 00:11:50 Any time you extract cannabis, it's an ancient technique. Period.

Robin Swann 00:11:54 Full stop, straight up. Okay. Until you get to CO2, which is the absolute worst way to extract cannabis, and it robs it completely of all medical value. All right. So let's talk about so because everybody knows that buzzword Rik Simpson oil who actually hates that everybody uses his name. And the product is actually called fully extracted cannabis oil. And that has been with us since the, since the beginning of the Ming dynasty. And the aromatic text, you can mark it back all the way to the 600 B.C. to see how they were using medicine. So anytime you were taking alcohol or butter or any type of fat and you were extracting cannabis, that's an ancient technique. That's exactly how our ancestors did it. Now what we've learned over time. You know, time in science is that BHO, when we can extract things through butane, we're able to do it because it's chronically frozen. We're able to pull the entire profile of all of the terpenes and all of the molecules. That way you can't do that with alcohol because there's a heating element that has to be involved.

Robin Swann 00:13:00 So when it's pulled through butane, you're getting all of that decarboxylation. And and like, you know, welcoming of everybody through chronically freezing it, which doesn't destroy the molecule. Heat destroys the molecule. Like there are all these people who are making medicine who are. And this always just makes me nuts. So I just have to speak it to everybody who hears it, who puts their weed in the oven, and then herb oscillates it like, what are you doing? You are basically killing the entire bottom panel of that plant, and then they start extracting it. That was not done in the Ming dynasty. That is not in the aromatic text. So that is not an ancient extraction method that is some dude in tube socks and shorts to his knees who wants to pull some weed through some butane? Who's trying to tell you something that's not correct? So stop burning your weed, people. Stop doing that. You are shorting yourself out, and the whole conversation of it has to be really high THC, or else it's not going to be healing.

Robin Swann 00:13:58 That's a huge myth and not true as well. There's only two THC molecules. I get really fired up about this. I'm sorry.

Margaret 00:14:04 Okay, well, that's okay.

Robin Swann 00:14:06 Though it doesn't take that much to like. You only need one sperm to make an egg. Have life, right? You only need a teeny tiny little bit of THC to activate that molecular chain of all of those C molecules which do all the heavy lifting and all of the repair. THC has one real purpose, and that's to eat cancer cells. That's its big magic. It doesn't necessarily reduce pain like I have because I, you know, in this position where I'm working with people with like broken bones and muscles and, you know, head injuries, I have learned over my 30 years of practice that there's nothing worse than being high and still in pain.

Margaret 00:14:44 Yeah. Yeah. Because then your brain's probably really more focused on it than it would have been before. Yeah, exactly.

Robin Swann 00:14:50 So there's a whole bunch of like CBD, CBD, CBN, CBD, you know, all of these other molecules that are very heavy in the mix and the teeny tiny little bit of THC, a lot of pain relief can happen.

Robin Swann 00:15:02 And also THC is amazing topically for pain relief.

Margaret 00:15:06 Oh I love it. I use it every single day for pain relief. But I and I it makes sense to me as well that, you know, using cannabis for pain relief. It's not a panacea for all types of pain. I would imagine you've probably seen a lot more than I have. But would would that make sense to you?

Robin Swann 00:15:24 Well, yeah, because where is the pain coming from? Is it nerve pain? Is it muscle pain? What's the origin? You know, I talk to hundreds of people all the time, and I want to know where it started. You know, like when I'm tracking, I'm working with somebody who's living with cancer and, you know, like, they're in a late stage of it and it's Mets to their bones in their liver. I that's terrible. But me addressing that isn't as important or directed as like was it brain didn't start a braised cancer. Did it start a breast cancer? Was it like in the pelvis? Like where is its origins? There's only 11 systems in the body, and five of them are really what run us.

Robin Swann 00:15:59 So understanding the illness or the disease that's attached to that system helps us understand how to use cannabinoids correctly. Like we have a line of high dose and low dose infusions. And those were all created through my 30 years of experience of working with people suffering with different illnesses, and also like tapping into the world community of, you know, my dear friend Corey Yellen. God bless her for little pointed head up there in heaven, her and I and our network of doctors and other cannabis makers throughout the entire globe, you know, since 2009 have been able to kind of come together with our own understanding of what really works and what doesn't work. So it's a lot of self-driven knowledge. And that's like when I when people reach out to me and they're like, well, is it going to cure my cancer? I'm like, well, I really can't say that because that's between you, God, and the disease. What I can say is that it's going to extend whatever life you have left. It's going to reduce your pain exponentially, and you're going to feel a lot better.

Robin Swann 00:17:03 And then hopefully you look at the caveat and the and the cherry on the cake and it will delete all your cancer. But you are a carbon based bean. And once your root system is fried, you're fried.

Margaret 00:17:15 Right? Yeah, yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me. But I do have to circle back for a second there because you were talking and I'm I'm trying to think if I miss something that you said. But when you were talking about decarboxylation, you're saying don't do it in the oven. Can you talk.

Margaret 00:17:27 About the carboxylate?

Robin Swann 00:17:28 Your weed? That is so stupid. Stop it.

Margaret 00:17:30 People.

Margaret 00:17:32 Because that goes against like almost everything you hear about.

Robin Swann 00:17:37 Every loser in tube socks and long shorts and a frickin, like, logo on the back of the shirt that's telling you what to do. Okay, so let's again, you asked me about ancestral and ancient wisdom. Let's go back to the Arabic text and back to the Ming dynasty. Nowhere in that text does it say burn your weed before you extract it.

Robin Swann 00:17:57 Nowhere in any of that medicine. It is completely contraindicated to burn off part of the plant, to raise just the THC, to make medicine. You've just missed the entire underbelly of the plant. You burn off most of the terpenes you burn off like all CBN, all the other lower molecules that need a lot less heat.

Margaret 00:18:18 Right?

Robin Swann 00:18:18 It just doesn't make any sense. And I will die on this hill. And I will go to town with science with anybody who wants to say that I'm wrong.

Margaret 00:18:26 Yeah I'm just I'm just, very curious about this, because obviously I have one of those people that have always said, you should carb your weed before you infuse it, because that's sort of the conventional wisdom, and that's what I've always done myself.

Margaret 00:18:38 But I invite.

Robin Swann 00:18:39 You not to do that. And I want you to know, here's how you can test my theory, because don't believe anything is right. Do both decarboxylase make your stuff? Don't decarboxylase make the same stuff? Take both things to the lab and look at the difference.

Margaret 00:18:54 Right?

Robin Swann 00:18:54 And then circle back with which one is going to be the more healing and provide your body with the biggest bang for its buck. Now, if you just want THC, burn the fuck out of the plant. Go ahead, do it. Ruin it, kill it. You just want to get high.

Margaret 00:19:07 Kill the plant.

Robin Swann 00:19:08 Go ahead. But if you're.

Margaret 00:19:09 Literally.

Robin Swann 00:19:10 Looking for medicine, stop it.

Margaret 00:19:12 Okay, so you're saying in the context of someone who just wants to use cannabis recreational recreationally, they might do so they get those higher THC potencies, but if you're using it.

Margaret 00:19:22 For that's going to.

Robin Swann 00:19:24 Get them either you're not. So let me just be very clear. Describing your weed is stupid, period. Like straight up like, come for me in the comments, I don't care, I will win with science on this. Stop doing it. It's bad information like so. All right, that's somebody's name. The plant is called fully extracted cannabis oil. Rick does not get a dollar when you use his name.

Robin Swann 00:19:44 You can go to YouTube and see the 12 videos that he's made about. Stop calling this product my name. He's a Canadian.

Margaret 00:19:51 Too.

Margaret 00:19:51 Yes, yes. Yeah he is. Okay, well, that's super interesting. I am going to have to try some experiments just myself just to see.

Margaret 00:19:58 But you're also suggesting go back.

Robin Swann 00:19:59 To me and let.

Margaret 00:20:00 Me know what you. Yeah.

Margaret 00:20:01 Yeah. And if I'd, if I don't d carb you're suggesting I'm going to maintain more of the. Well, I guess that makes sense.

Margaret 00:20:06 I'm not going to.

Robin Swann 00:20:07 Same level of THC. More than likely it might be. It's going to be within the ten point range. Okay. But what you're going to see is the entire underbelly of the plant is going to be there. You're going to have a higher terpenes rate. Terpenes are super important for healing. They're incredibly important. They feed are all factory.

Margaret 00:20:23 Yeah. Okay. Well, I mean, my next question was talking about how home edibles cooks, who always start with butter and oil, can uplevel their homemade infusions.

Margaret 00:20:32 And I guess one thing they can do is just skip the D carb and see what happens.

Robin Swann 00:20:35 So decarbonize.

Margaret 00:20:38 Yeah. I mean, I find that really interesting because I've interviewed over 70 people on this show now over time, and you're the first person who have ever said anything like this.

Robin Swann 00:20:48 And am I also the first person with a degree in herbology and and medicine? Like I'm just curious about that as well because like, I come to this, this business with education in plants, not just cannabis, I didn't just all of a sudden I want to make some cannabis stuff. In fact, it was the last thing I wanted to do was start a cannabis industry, our business. I mean, I had a full blown practice working with professional sports, and now I'm like bobbing and weaving around the law and trying to help people. And I don't make anywhere near the money I made when I worked with the NFL. Like, right. Or and I have 3000 times more the risk. So why would I keep doing it? Unless there was something greater than money that was serving me, and that is that I actually see people get well.

Robin Swann 00:21:36 And that is priceless, because we work a lot with people who have children. And when you can save an infant, you know, a nine month old baby with brain cancer and at the very minimal keep that baby alive for 2 or 3 years. That's a success story that matters in this world. You know, it makes a difference for those people who give birth to that child, right?

Margaret 00:21:58 Absolutely. Yeah. so you work with, you know, your patients with an apothecary, you have oral and transdermal applications. So if somebody is infusing at home and they want to, do you feel like they carry your fat matters as far as.

Robin Swann 00:22:14 Like, yeah, I think if you're infusing at home, I don't waste your money on like the, the machines, the magic butters and the all that kind of stuff, like go old school. It's super easy. Low heat, long time. And when you're extracting, you need to know the temperature of the butter or the fat that you're extracting with nothing extracts at the same temperature.

Robin Swann 00:22:34 Coconut is very low in temperature. You can easily burn your coconut oil. You're not going to get the same kind of product if you do it correctly. So spend a couple minutes with your buddy ChatGPT or Google and find out the boiling point of the butter or fat that you're using to extract it in and then, you know, work. From there, you're going to get a much richer, sweeter, better balanced product.

Margaret 00:22:58 Right? And but you don't find necessarily you have a preference to one carrier oil versus another, because I used to.

Robin Swann 00:23:04 Be a big fan of olive oil, honestly, like all the seed oil, those are my favorites, right? But, you know, people love coconut oil. I'm not a big fan of coconut oil just because of its it's low. Like it just goes bad quick. You know, it's such a low heat point. It heats in and starts melting at 70 something, you know, degrees. I don't know in Celsius what that is, I apologize.

Robin Swann 00:23:26 Yeah. Okay. You know, and so you're going to have more turning things like getting worse, you know, faster and stuff. you know, if you're going to use butter, I'm a bigger fan of ghee because you've burnt off that fat that's going to. And then, you know, if you're a home extractor, the most important thing that you can do, whether you're using alcohol or fats, it doesn't matter, is to make sure that you've removed all of your plant material, because that's what molds your product. So you have to like, you know, filter filter, filter filter filter at nauseum filter. Let it sit, look at the bottom. If that bottom isn't as clear as the top, warm it back up. Filter again. The longer you filter or the more you filter, the more plant material you move. The the longer your stuff is going to last for.

Margaret 00:24:11 Yeah, and that makes sense to me because I have infused butter. Not like a long time ago. I remember infusing butter and finding that it had gone bad on me.

Margaret 00:24:19 It had gone rancid, and which is uncommon but typically is pretty, you know, shelf stable. But I had infused it and there was probably still some plant material in it, and it went bad on me, and it was really gross. And I'm glad you mentioned. Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned the olive oil as well, because when I first started making edibles, I loved coconut oil, but I've really I don't infuse that as much anymore either, not only because of the lower smoke point, but just it adds a certain flavor profile that I find it makes it less versatile as far as an infusion goes.

Robin Swann 00:24:49 So if you like coconut oil, use cocoa butter. It's got a higher burn rate, it's longer, it's heavier fat and it tastes better.

Margaret 00:24:56 Yeah. And ghee is fantastic as well because it's really fatty. And we all know that.

Robin Swann 00:25:01 And it doesn't really have too much of a flavor. Yeah.

Margaret 00:25:03 So yeah. Yeah. now a lot of the listeners come to edibles from a wellness angle.

Margaret 00:25:10 So they're not just here to, you know, eat edibles and get high at a lot of them like myself. They want Bleep. They want to be able to sleep. They want pain relief. Anxiety management. How do you approach formulating for specific outcomes like that?

Robin Swann 00:25:26 well, you know, anxiety is definitely a low THC situation because too much THC will make you want to climb the walls. And if you're having a bad reaction to any kind of THC, it means you're probably allergic to it. You know, you could have an allergy towards it. So, and I don't know how available like, on this, like, can you go into a dispensary and buy isolates? I don't know, like, can you, do you do that like for CBD and other CBD, things like that? I'm not exactly sure how you get those. Like, you know, we buy them buy kilos. So I don't know how you buy them in small ounces. But you know, cannabis plays well with so many things.

Robin Swann 00:26:01 And I think it's great. Like people who want to use it for low dose, low dose, low. That's the the simplest way is like low dose pain, sleep, low dose. It can prime your system if you're using if you're making products and you want to use them for sleep, then use the product 2 or 3 hours before you're ready to go to bed, and then take some more before right before your butt hits that bed. This way you got some moving through your system, and then as you're sleeping more is dropping into your blood system.

Margaret 00:26:31 Yeah, okay. That makes a lot of sense to me. And also as far as, like going to the dispenser, you can buy distillate, I think I, I worked at a dispensary a few years ago, and I remember when they had CBD distillate or not distill, isolate come out and you could buy that. But it was a pretty it was pretty expensive from what I remember. And I think you're abiding by the gram.

Robin Swann 00:26:53 I think it's probably come down in price quite a bit.

Margaret 00:26:55 Yeah, it probably has. And there might be more options available as well than there used to be when I worked there, because that was a few years ago by now, but minimum effective dose. That sounds like kind of what you're recommending, which I do like.

Robin Swann 00:27:06 Yeah, it starts small, go high. Like nobody wants to be like balls to the wall high. And like, you know, this is why we're working with people who are living with cancer. We're wanting them to use somewhere between 1000 and 1500mg of cannabinoids a day. That's a lot. And 4% of that mix is going to be THC. So, you know, and you're going to sweat like a junkie if you do it orally. So we've created a suppository system where. Right, you know, by going through when you use cannabis in a high dose, cannabis as a suppository, it passes first through the lymph system, which is great if you're living with cancer because you want your lymph system healthy and then it comes back.

Robin Swann 00:27:42 It is a path through a pass, through the colon wall into the blood system, which takes about 6 to 8 hours. So you can function, you can drive, you can deal your kids, you can have your life, and you can still get that amazing amount of cannabinoids in your body before, you know, without having to sit in the corner drooling.

Margaret 00:28:00 Yeah, because most people don't really have the time to do that. And like you mentioned earlier, I am one of those people where I can easily, if I consume too much THC, get paranoid and it's very uncomfortable, obviously. So that's why the minimum effective dose is even when I'm like, enjoying cannabis recreationally, I still try and enjoy that minimum effective dose, because just going a little bit too far, has me questioning my life choices and be like, what's that sound like? It's not.

Robin Swann 00:28:31 Okay.

Margaret 00:28:32 It's not fun at all.

Margaret 00:28:33 Yeah, yeah. It goes from fun to fearful very quickly. And then, you know, I'm just like, when is this over? Which kind of defeats the purpose of the whole thing anyway.

Margaret 00:28:42 But exactly.

Robin Swann 00:28:43 And if you ever get in that situation, anybody who's like, got way too much THC in their system and they're losing their mind. There's a couple of things that are really helpful. First of all, a hot shower that's going to blow, that's going to move it through your system. Second, peppercorns chew on peppercorns and you know, fat, have some ice cream or some fried chicken. And then if none of that is working for you and you're just like, I can't take it, take a Benadryl and go to sleep.

Margaret 00:29:06 That's interesting about the fat like I've heard about. And I've had a few people tell me anecdotally that the peppercorns do work, that it's worked for them when they've they've gotten too high. But why the fat?

Robin Swann 00:29:19 Fat absorbs THC and it brings you down and it just relaxed. Yeah. Just absorption.

Margaret 00:29:25 Okay.

Margaret 00:29:25 Oh that's so happy.

Robin Swann 00:29:27 Ice cream. You're happy. Fried chicken.

Margaret 00:29:29 Yeah. You know.

Margaret 00:29:31 I mean, it's worth a shot if you're too high.

Margaret 00:29:33 You have some peppercorns and ice cream.

Margaret 00:29:35 Why not?

Robin Swann 00:29:35 But definitely hit the shower. First and foremost, they're getting a hot bath. Start sweating it out, you know, because that's it's only a few minutes like 20 to 30 minutes to get past the most uncomfortable period, especially in.

Margaret 00:29:46 The hot water.

Margaret 00:29:47 Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That's, that's very practical advice right there. Now, as far as dosing goes, I mean, this is something that people always want to talk about is dosing. Because if you're making edibles at home, it's really tricky sometimes to get accurate numbers, because a lot of the times you might be using homegrown cannabis so you don't have know how strong it is. What do you suggest that people do when it comes to?

Margaret 00:30:13 I think that if you can.

Robin Swann 00:30:14 Access a lab, because that's truly the only way that you're going to find out what milligrams per gram are. I'd say that what I've just seen collectively, in my experience is that if somebody is growing their own cannabis and then they're processing it, they're coming out to around 600mg between 550 and 650mg/g of THC and cannabinoids.

Robin Swann 00:30:37 So just by kind of using that number, you know, in your mind, you can sort of deduce what you're going to do. And then of course, there, you know, don't be afraid of math. That's the way you get correct dosing, you.

Margaret 00:30:49 Know, if you're going to.

Robin Swann 00:30:49 If you if you have something that's 600mg and you want it to be, you know, ten milligrams, then divide and then see.

Margaret 00:30:58 How.

Robin Swann 00:30:58 Many little cakes you need to make. And then you're going to know, because it's going to split because the math is correct. So you can't get to correct dosing without math.

Margaret 00:31:08 Yeah, I know, I know, a lot of people probably don't like hearing that, but it's kind.

Margaret 00:31:12 Of true, you know?

Robin Swann 00:31:13 I don't know, like, I'm an American and you're a Canadian. I don't know how, like, scared of math you were taught in school, but, you know, like, math is something that I did not pay attention to in school, and I did everything.

Robin Swann 00:31:23 I have a PhD, and I did everything I could to avoid math. And when I got to the point and I mean, I've made multiple products like the like I just, you know, I mean, I made lots of products that don't have cannabis that I've had to like, you know, like create from different herbs and stuff. But when I got down to the cannabis business and I had to be like, correct on point milligrams per gram, I literally spent hours in my lab sobbing, beating the ground just because the math was so hard. So now nobody has to do that. Now they have ChatGPT plug your recipe into an AI and it's going to tell you you don't need to be like me and break your glass bracelets and sob and feel like you need to kill yourself because you can't figure out what ten milligrams is going to come from. 7000?

Margaret 00:32:11 Yeah, you're absolutely right. Like, I have a calculator on my website. I show the math as well because there are some people who.

Robin Swann 00:32:18 Have.

Margaret 00:32:18 That proclivity. I'm not that person necessarily like I, you know, I can do it, but I like to take the shortcuts too.

Robin Swann 00:32:26 So, yeah, don't be afraid of math. Math is our friend. You know, it's the universal language. It's what we all speak. So you know. Don't, don't, don't tell yourself that you can't do math because you can't.

Margaret 00:32:38 Yeah. And honestly, the math of figuring out potency isn't that difficult, because I do. I wasn't super great at math in school, but I did have to do some calculus and stuff. And like, you know, that was way harder. Stats. Got that. Yeah. No fun. But how would you approach dosing then for if you're making edibles for somebody else. Like I don't want maybe in a medical context you know somebody that would like to, you know, take some edibles or pain relief or something like that. Would you change up your approach a little bit if you're making them for someone else versus yourself?

Robin Swann 00:33:13 well, I mean, like our products are I'm talking about like, if I'm like at home and I want to make something.

Robin Swann 00:33:18 Okay. Yeah. So, I would probably talk to the person that I'm working with and see where they fall on the like. How high do they want to be? What's really going on with them? I mean, there's a lot of nuances in cannabinoids. It's not just THC or CBD like, you know, yeah, CBG is super amazing for anti-inflammatory issues. CBC is incredible for, you know, the cellular repair of our organs. that's not like that's a simple question, but that's not a simple answer.

Margaret 00:33:46 Yeah, yeah. No, I know I like to ask.

Robin Swann 00:33:50 About all backyard alchemists and kitchen witches. Follow your heart and trust your intuition because you were led to those plants from those places, from your intuition and your heart and your desire that is never going to lead you wrong. And you're going to find your right pathway and whoever you're helping by trial and error. So you're never going to end up in the lab or in your kitchen or in your backyard. And the first that like maybe once you might in your whole entire life, nail it the very first time you do it.

Robin Swann 00:34:23 But there has to be allowance for not having it right, not getting it correct.

Margaret 00:34:29 Yeah, yeah, that makes sense to me. Anytime I've made edibles for other people, I often, you know, I make my calculations knowing that it could be off. And then I'll say, this is how much I think it is. And you should probably start with half of that or a quarter, depending on your experience, because that way they can test it out for themselves before just being like, yeah, okay. And then having a bad time on my account because I just don't want that.

Robin Swann 00:34:55 Yeah, exactly. And I mean, and if you're making something for somebody else, you're already going above and beyond. You're already, you know, Dewey, you're already out there helping. So if your product sucks, you know, you try. If they get you high, they can eat less. Or if they can get high enough, they can eat more. So you're never. You're never wrong.

Robin Swann 00:35:18 Ever. And even if you make the most heinous stuff, you could probably rub it on your skin. Or you can just mix it back into another batch and try again.

Margaret 00:35:29 I have done that before, both of those things. So yes, I concur that there's no there's no sense in wasting good products just because something didn't turn out exactly the way you hoped it was. So yeah. And I also love the Backyard Alchemist Kitchen, which is to of course, but I just love both of those phrases. So I'm probably going to be using those more. Yeah, thank you for that.

Robin Swann 00:35:47 Thank you. Because I love the Backyard Alchemist. I mean, that was me. I mean, I started I've been making products in the backyard since I was literally five years old. And I, I have children. And my youngest daughter, when she was in fourth grade was making, like in the backyard, picking my herbs, putting things together and then taking them to kids in her class. And I was like, girl, you can't do this like you were in fourth grade.

Robin Swann 00:36:09 You cannot be giving like, you know, herbal remedies to other fourth graders. I'm going to go to jail. And they were like cannabis products, just like rose hips and camomile, but but still. So if you are someone who likes that, you have always liked that and you have to trust that you know, because you do know, so you don't get bogged down with, I don't have an education, you know, plants are alive. They speak, like I said, especially the cannabis plant. It's in the center of the wheel. It's a teacher plant. Its job is to teach us. And, you know, teachers can sometimes kick your ass and leave you in the corner crying. Especially if you've ever done martial arts. You will know that if you come up against your sensei or you know your dojo master, you're going to get served up. Cannabis is no different. This is how she heals this. This is how she teaches us by pushing the limits within us. So don't be afraid and don't think you don't know because you do know.

Margaret 00:37:05 And I love that too, because I feel like I've had definitely that experience of the teacher plant with psilocybin before. But people don't often equate that with cannabis the same way for whatever reason. Maybe because when you get high, you don't get quite as out of it as you might with a higher dose of psilocybin. But it applies just as much like you said. Like, we can learn so much, and it's more approachable in a lot of ways because, you know, it's you just can't get high on mushrooms all the time. At least I can't.

Robin Swann 00:37:34 So no. And nor do you want to because that's the thing. So there is, there is something called the ladder of maturation, which is the journey of our spirit to our soul. Okay. And so plants like mushrooms, like fungus like mushrooms and plants like cannabis and other, you know, ayahuasca, things like this in this family, they they're designed to kind of catapult us through the learning to yourself. But once you've gotten there, you have to integrate.

Robin Swann 00:38:02 So it's not a continuation of going back to the place of like, I need more information. You have to integrate everything you've already learned or else it's pointless. And then the plants and the fungus will turn on you because they'll be like, hey buddy, you ain't paying attention to me. I'm either not going to work or, you know, you're going to just sit there in the corner and drool and forget where you put your keys for 12 hours.

Margaret 00:38:25 Right. Yeah. And that doesn't sound like, you know, a fun time. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Now, sorry. I just lost my spot there for a second, but you all you carry at Swan Apothecary Fico. And which are high potency extracts, which we already talked about earlier. What would you tell somebody who wanted to use them for making edibles? Because I know there's lots of people who prefer using a Fico than a regular infusion.

Robin Swann 00:38:55 Great. I think that is the best way to get the most out of the plant.

Robin Swann 00:39:00 You know, if you can, even if you're working with a couple grams and or, you know, like an ounce or whatever, and you can just do that extraction with alcohol on your stovetop, you're going to get 5 or 6g of concentrate. That's going to make a whole lot more edibles that are going to last longer and be stronger than a butter extraction or an olive oil extraction.

Margaret 00:39:24 Right. So just so, is there anything that you think people should know before they get started with using like a high potency extract like that?

Robin Swann 00:39:31 Clean your space and wear gloves.

Margaret 00:39:35 Okay.

Robin Swann 00:39:36 Yeah. Like gloves are really important. And wear a mask. You know, everybody's like. Oh. And like, when we work with our mushroom products, when we're doing mushrooms, my, the people that my staff, my production crew, they are in hazmat suits and people think it's funny, but mushroom does flies. And if you're if you're just there to work, if you're just there to create, you know you really want to be like, present and not like getting high and getting lost.

Robin Swann 00:40:03 And so, you know, clean up your kitchen, wear gloves, wear a mask. Pay attention, practice good handling technique because who knows that little product that you're making in your kitchen right now might be something that you're going to be making for tens of thousands of people. You know, like you might be one of those people like me who's going to go from their bedroom floor to the boardroom. And the practices you start now are the practices that you're going to keep as you grow in your business or in your home.

Margaret 00:40:34 Okay.

Robin Swann 00:40:35 I like designated tool designated tools for making your medicine like different, not pots that you're going to cook pasta in like you need to invest. Go to the goodwill if you don't have any money and spend some money. Get your stuff that lives in a container that's just for your medicine making. Make sure you wash it before you start. You wash it after you start. Like. Our lab is on an alchemical grid. My whole building is with crystals and copper wiring.

Robin Swann 00:41:03 And, you know, there's only certain musics that are allowed to be being played when we're, you know, formulating medicine. And this is all to create the vibrational pattern within the product. So you can you can really amplify that when you're in your home.

Margaret 00:41:19 Interesting. So is there any music that you would recommend? Is it like a certain Hertz that people like that the music has played at or.

Robin Swann 00:41:26 Well, I could tell you what I won't allow to play. You know, I don't really. I mean, like the Hertz thing is very important. And actually music is incredibly healing. But I'm not a musicologist, so I can't really tell you what hurts to be in. So like, for me, there's no rock, there's no rap, there's no there's no violence. You know, when we're working with mushrooms, we do a lot of playing like Punjabi music because it's very high lifting and it makes you want to dance and it makes you want to move. You know, when I'm making medicine for people who are dealing with cancer.

Robin Swann 00:41:55 We're we're going more into, like, the lo fi system because we want people to be able to, you know, when they ingest relax because that's how we heal our central, our nervous system, our immunity only repairs when we are at rest. It doesn't repair when we're in a hyper state. You know, like some people be like, are you making that with sativa? You know, they're all scared that they're going to get like all wired up with a sativa. But when you're compounding cannabinoids and like when we make our oil, we're using an entire there's 25 different strains usually. And they're coming from three different grow areas. So I'm getting a cannabinoid profile. It ceases to be sativa or indica. So if you're making your own medicine mix up your strains. That way you're going to get the most powerful example of the cannabinoids that you can use a really intense sativa and a really intense indica. Combine them.

Margaret 00:42:55 I love that. Yeah, and also just the whole thinking about your environment when you're making your edibles, which is something.

Margaret 00:43:02 Yeah. Yeah.

Robin Swann 00:43:03 Like you're I mean like. Yeah. Be mindful. You know, the more mindful we are, the, the more we're able to heal and achieve what we want.

Margaret 00:43:11 Yeah. Now, apothecary, you have products that that you've formulated for specific goals, like, you know, anxiety and sleep and all kinds of things. if a home cook is trying to build towards similar outcomes, like they have a specific outcome that they're looking for, like maybe they want something for daytime use or whatever. Do you have a like a framework for thinking about ratios or timing?

Robin Swann 00:43:35 Yeah for sure. Well it's not so much. Okay. So if you want to make something for sleep then, you know, consider terpenes. Like anybody can buy terpenes. They're available in the secular market. So terpenes are what make things go up and down. So when you go into the dispensary and you're buying like a sativa gummy, it's more than likely not made with the sativa. And it's more than likely made with a ton of different plants.

Robin Swann 00:43:56 So it's whatever. But the terpene profile that they've added to that mix is in the sativa family. It's uplifting. So terpenes are super important. And then also other plants add plants like valerian root or for sleeping them specifically, or skullcap, you know, mix them in with your cannabis. I'm not a big fan of adding essential oils, you know, especially after they're done, even food grade essential oils, because the essential oil itself has gone through an extraction process, and all you're really getting is the scent of that you're not really getting. If you want to like flower essences don't smell as strong as essential oils. However, they have a higher vibrational pattern and more of the plant present than an essential oil.

Margaret 00:44:46 Okay. I'm glad you mentioned that because I was going to ask you about essential oils. Just because, you know, some people have them in your in their house. I have a, I have a bunch. But then as far as extracting for specific outcomes, you mentioned like valerian, would I consider extracting cannabis with the valerian together?

Robin Swann 00:45:04 Yes.

Robin Swann 00:45:05 Yeah. Mix them together. Yeah. Put them together.

Margaret 00:45:08 And could this just be like a dried valerian that I've picked up at my local shop?

Robin Swann 00:45:12 Go to your local herb store, get skullcap, get valerian root, get chamomile, get whatever you're looking for. You don't need a lot, you know, like one ounce of cannabis, let's say, to one ounce of cannabis, you're going to use a quarter ounce of the herb that you want. And that's a that's a good rule that anyone can use. All of y'all out there. One, it's a one fourth to one, one a quarter to okay. Yeah.

Margaret 00:45:37 Yeah I love that. Because like, you can pick up all kinds of things at the store and then maybe even. What other ways do you use it besides? I mean, sleep, obviously, but is there anything, any plants? companion plants that you've infused with that you find produce a really interesting result, whether it's just flavor or taste or outcome differences.

Robin Swann 00:45:56 I love citrus, and they're very uplifting and they're great for moods.

Robin Swann 00:46:00 And you can use all of your, you know, the the orange peel, the lemon peel, the lime peel, all of that. I love to throw those in when I'm like, we have a we have a product that has a citrus background. I think it's the pain away. And when that's created, excuse me, I'm just basically throwing lemon pills into the infusion that we're the oil that we're infusing into. So we use a hemp seed oil. So I throw my botanicals into the hemp seed oil and I infuse that. And then we add the isolates and the concentrates so that that carrier oil is already infused.

Margaret 00:46:36 Right. Okay. And there's no issue with using like the fresh peel as far because you're. You're stringing it out anyway. Yeah. Like as far as bringing in, like, water content or.

Robin Swann 00:46:48 The strain strain strain strain strain.

Margaret 00:46:50 Yeah yeah yeah yeah okay I yeah it's funny because I find like a lot of home extractors don't really think about all the other things they could be extracting along with the extractor.

Robin Swann 00:47:00 You're getting your information on YouTube or whatever. And most people who are doing it are not people like me who have an educational background and, you know, a business background in it. So these are nuances that you don't know what you don't know, and nobody's dumb. And until you know, you don't know. So this is like, this is why these kind of podcasts, like your show is so important because you're helping. And I mean, I, I love the teacher person, the fish as opposed to sell them a fish. I mean, I love that I love a person who makes their own medicine. And I will go like as far out of my way as I can to help people create their own products. Because I that again the into the intention your intuition, the love that you put into it. Even if you make something garbage, it's still fabulous. It's still amazing. It's made with you so you can never get it wrong.

Margaret 00:47:50 Yeah, yeah, I really love that because I have done a lot of extractions, like infused olive oil with fresh herbs so I can maintain the flavor of those herbs throughout the winter when it's cold and nasty where I am.

Margaret 00:48:02 And I mean, you could do the same with exactly as well.

Robin Swann 00:48:06 And take that olive oil and then you can make your cannabis product with it.

Margaret 00:48:11 Yeah. Yeah. Fantastic. Now I love that you also mentioned like you touched on it a second ago, but your guiding principle is love all, serve all. And you're vocal about social equity in cannabis for home edibles makers who are doing this in legal, legal places, legal jurisdictions, but others are not. How do you think about the responsibility that comes with being a part of this community?

Robin Swann 00:48:33 Well, let me just be very clear when I say fuck the law.

Margaret 00:48:40 I love it. Yeah.

Robin Swann 00:48:42 Yeah. I can't say anything more than that. You know that. These are plants. They grow in the ground. They're not regulated. They're not regulated. So, you know, seriously, if you watch the news, if someone's going to come for you because you're infusing cannabis, then they got way too much time on their hands. But of course, now in that, you know, we work with a lot of people who have kids who are trying to treat their kids, and it's a different situation, especially if your child is sick and you're in a place where it's not legal and you're giving your kid cannabis, the state in in America, the state can come in and take your child from you.

Robin Swann 00:49:12 So there, of course, is you have to be know the law. Okay. Because like Bob Dylan said, if you want to be an outlaw, you got to know the law. So you can't break a law if you don't know the law. So understand what the perimeter and the paradigm of where you live is. And then bob and weave. Maybe you don't be standing on the corner across the street from an elementary school trying to sell your wares, right?

Margaret 00:49:39 Yeah, that totally makes sense. Can you talk a bit more about the level of principle that you have? Like, where are you? I mean, I'd say where you came up with it, but obviously that's through your work.

Robin Swann 00:49:50 So Love All Serval is actually from Saibaba who is an Indian deity. And it came to me via Isaac Tigard, and he is the guy that started the hard Rock cafe. And if you've never been to a hard rock, love all, serve all is on everything it's on. It's all over the place, on the the matches and everything.

Robin Swann 00:50:10 And the reason why Isaac did that was he was in India and he was walking down like he was like super high or whatever. He was walking through some pathway and he he saw like a little restaurant that said, love all, serve all. And they were just feeding people for free. They were just feeding, you know, the, the poor people for free. And he and and that really touched him in that moment. And he thought, I'm going to build my business on this principle. So Isaac was one of my clients very, very long ago. And when, when he told me that story, I decided I'm going to love all serve all too. Because what that really means is to love all means I love you where you're at, and I'll serve you. What you what you what you need. Okay, so, like, let's look to the goddess Colly. In this, she has eight arms and she's wearing a necklace of heads. You see her and you're like, oh, she's so scary, right? But sometimes the way that we give life is by cutting off the head.

Robin Swann 00:51:09 We have to cut the head of the snake of something that's really terrible in our life. That is a loving action to stand and protect yourself and take out something that's coming from you. So it doesn't mean like, oh, I love you. I'll do whatever you want. It means I'm going to meet you where you're at, and I'm going to serve you what you need. So that is the principle of my business. We don't turn people away, but we also just don't give them, like, we're not just here to pet their head and be like no accountability or responsibility for you. We'll do it for you, right?

Margaret 00:51:40 Yeah. And they meet you. Where you at? Where you're at is a very important distinction as well, because you're not requiring people to show up a certain way. And I think that's a that's an important distinction there too.

Robin Swann 00:51:52 Yeah. And I mean, like I've had people call I mean, like and also don't take anybody personally because like people are going to like you, love you, hate you, dislike you or not care anything about you.

Robin Swann 00:52:00 And, and and that goes for your products as well. Like you're going to get all five of those human responses. Even Jesus only got those five responses. You know, like some people loved him. They called him the Son of God. Some people hated him. They stuck him on a cross and killed him. Some people went to like farming their sheep. They just didn't care. So it's the same thing. So if you are in your integrity and you are moving from that place of integrity, you are always going to do good work and how it's received by others is going to be how they perceive it and where they're at in their life.

Margaret 00:52:38 Right?

Robin Swann 00:52:39 And that's part of the principle of love all, serve all is that I'm going to serve you and give you love. But I'm not your doormat. I'm not here to be responsible for your actions. I'm here to reflect you where you're at. I love to serve you in a way that's going to bring you to your highest point, your highest self, which sometimes might be pulling the rug out from underneath your allows.

Robin Swann 00:53:02 You know.

Margaret 00:53:03 Oh, 100%. I've certainly had that happen to myself. So yeah, you know, it's called growth.

Robin Swann 00:53:08 But exactly.

Margaret 00:53:09 You know, it's not always fun.

Robin Swann 00:53:11 Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Usually not fun, but super important and reflective. When you look back on it after a couple of years, you realize that without that moment, you would not be the awesome source that you are now.

Margaret 00:53:21 Yeah. Now, Robin, just a couple more questions today because I want to be mindful of our time. And I feel like I could talk to you forever. But what would surprise people about you.

Robin Swann 00:53:34 let me see. I don't know what would surprise me. I'm actually an introvert, you know? So I'm. I'm very external, but I'm actually. I'm a huge gardener. I actually, like, turned my phone off at 5:00, and on the weekend, don't talk to anybody. I just hang out with my plants and animals. So I think that's it.

Margaret 00:53:53 Yeah, I like that because I consider myself a bit of an ambivalent myself.

Margaret 00:53:57 You know, I can be quite external, but I certainly love the alone time as well. And finally, where can people find you? Like where can they find Swan Apothecary and the work that you're putting out in the world?

Robin Swann 00:54:09 Well, I appreciate that you said Swan Apothecary about 200 times during this interview. Thank you so much. And that's exactly where people can find us is at Swan apothecary.com. They can also Google my name, Robin Swann. I'm all over the place. We're on Facebook, Instagram where we're all the things. Yeah, yeah all over. And we you know, we shipped to Canada and we shipped to the UK. So, you know we're available and they can do consultations with me as well if they want. And all of that is available just via my name Robin swann.com or Swann apothecary.com. You know we're we're always here and we always have time for you. I always tell people that repetition is the second law of learning. So I'm never going to get mad at you for asking me the same question 200 times.

Robin Swann 00:54:49 Like I might screenshot what I already said just because you might see it again, but never from a place of oh my God, are you asking me again? You know, and if you're working just for everybody out there who's navigating the cesspool of the cannabis industry, who's maybe not making make your own stuff as much as you can. And if you cannot make your own stuff and you're like seeking for others, don't do business with people who inbox you okay and tell you that they've got the best products ever. Okay. Don't do business with people who don't have phone numbers, emails, and you cannot talk to them on the phone. Be mindful of your money. Because what I have seen is that people love their people and they will go to the end of the earth. They will buy magic beans. They will. They will give everything to keep their loved one alive. And unfortunately, that puts them in a very vulnerable position. So be protective of your beautiful self and your loved ones. Do your due diligence and make sure that nobody is just trying to take your money.

Margaret 00:55:52 Honestly, that totally checks out because when I worked the dispensary, I had a lot of older customers that would come in and they would sometimes be like, I want to buy this, like this thing that I have. And they would show me a little vial and it was usually so many times it would be hemp oil, like the kind that you would buy at the grocery store. Being sold is like some kind of CBD elixir, you know, that would solve all their ailments and stuff. And it was some of the prices they were paying were outrageous as well. For some of you, go to the store and buy spend ten bucks for a bottle that was 2100 times the size. So that's a really great reminder. And I, I would suggest that everybody check out Swan Apothecary because I have been to your website and it looks fantastic.

Robin Swann 00:56:36 And yeah, thank you Margaret. It's been so great talking to you. I really appreciate that you gave me this time and anyway that we can support you.

Robin Swann 00:56:42 We are happy to do that. Will of course like share your great word. But yeah, we all got to get out there and just spread the gospel of cannabis because, you know, she is our savior basically. And she has been with us for always food, shelter, clothing, medicine, fuel. That's our you know, we are here. That plant is here for us and has always been.

Margaret 00:57:02 Yes, that's a great way to end it. Thank you so much for your time today, Robin. Robin said something that I've been mulling over since she said it. She said that if you're in your integrity, you are always going to do good work. How it's received depends on where other people are at in their own lives. And that feels true for making medicine. For making edibles. For growing cannabis. And for a lot of other things, too. If today's conversation lit something up in you, I'd love to have you inside the Bite Me Cannabis Club, where we talk about exactly this kind of thing, the how to yes, but also the why, the philosophy of making your own, of taking control, of not outsourcing your cannabis to a corporation that doesn't know your name and more than likely doesn't give a shit about you.

Margaret 00:57:51 You can find Robin Swann at Swann Apothecary and Robin Swann. She ships to Canada and the UK and of course, the United States, where she's based. She offers consultations. If you're navigating something serious and you want to talk to somebody who actually really knows this plant, she's the real deal. Share this episode with somebody that you care about. My friends. As always, I'm your host, Margaret. And until next time, stay curious and stay high.