Unscripted Cannabis

About Unscripted Cannabis

We're talking with profesionals, growers, software vendors, dispensary owners, enthusiasts all who work in the cannabis industry.

Publisher

Jeremy Rivera

Category

business · health & fitness · leisure

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

21 Jan 2025

Latest episode

9 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

8 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   9 Oct 2026

   Mark Gillilan: The THC-Free Bet and the November 12 Hemp Rule

   Mark Gillilan started Kyoto Botanicals in 2020 as a THC-free CBD company, years before federal law moved the same way. On this episode of Unscripted Cannabis, host Mr. Gudwudz (Just Jay) asks him why he built it that way from day one, and what the federal hemp rule taking effect November 12, 2026 means for everyone who didn't. Mark got his start in hemp wellness about ten years ago at Charlotte's Web, and today Kyoto Botanicals makes broad-spectrum CBD and functional mushroom products. The full written recap is at Mark Gillilan: THC-Free by Design, and there's a closer look at the new rule in November 12 and the 0.4 milligram rule. In this episode The afternoon Mark spent mixing full-spectrum extract in his kitchen and realized he was high, and why the 0.3% THC limit hides the number that matters: "It's the milligrams." A 25 milligram full-spectrum gummy can carry a milligram of THC, and a high-dose tincture four to six per serving. What broad spectrum and "no-detect" lab results actually mean, plus his honest warning for anyone whose job depends on a drug test. Functional mushrooms (lion's mane, reishi, cordyceps, chaga, nothing psilocybin), why Kyoto dual-extracts them with alcohol and water to get past the chitin, and Mark's routine: mushrooms for "quiet focus" by day, CBD for sleep at night. The November 12 federal hemp rule and its 0.4 milligrams of total THC per container, the numbers Mark has seen suggesting about 95% of the CBD industry falls outside it, and Tennessee, where Kyoto no longer ships. How the industry got here: "It's like water, it's gonna find the weak spots." Delta 8, heavy-loaded products, and what the rule could mean for the farmers who converted tobacco acres to hemp. Building a brand from the inside out, and why Kyoto leans on education through its blog, YouTube channel and local markets. Find Mark and his products at kyotobotanicals.com, and more conversations at Unscripted Cannabis.

2. 

   29 Sept 2026

   Farmer Tom Lauerman: From a 1999 Raid to Teaching the CDC About Cannabis

   Farmer Tom Lauerman started growing cannabis at 13 in San Diego, got arrested at 16 in the Ocean Beach pier parking lot, and has spent every decade since fighting for the plant. On this episode of Unscripted Cannabis, host Mr. Gudwudz (Just Jay) hands him the floor, and Tom walks through his whole history in one sitting: the collective, the raid, the farmers markets, and the two days he spent teaching federal scientists what a cannabis farm actually looks like. He runs Farmer Tom Organics, where he offers consulting for cannabis and hemp farms. The full written recap is at Farmer Tom Lauerman: The Seed That Started It All. In this episode Shelter from the Storm, the Prop 215 collective Tom grew for in San Diego: about 20 patients, $50 a month if you could afford it, and a jar filled once a week on the honor system. "It was a true collective model." The 1999 raid on his San Diego collective (it started with his dog nipping at a neighbor's fence), why the collective kept a media list (a lesson from Brownie Mary), and how NORML's lawyers and a courthouse protest got the charges shelved. The case led to San Diego's first medical marijuana task force. Moving to Oregon's Applegate Valley, then a five-acre former nursery outside Portland on the Washington side, where he cleaned the soil with pumpkins before growing. Washington's medical marijuana farmers markets, the magazine covers that came out of them, and lobbying in Olympia while the state wrote its legalization rules. The live extraction demo he organized for TV news that helped change the state's mind about concentrates: "If you don't regulate and tax, people are gonna continue to blow themselves up." Hosting CDC and NIOSH scientists on his farm in 2015 for a union-requested health hazard evaluation, including the CyberGlove study that produced the carpal tunnel warning for trimmers. The Lund Report covered the study. Teaching cannabis courses at Clark College, training over 300 farmers through his Hemp Farming Academy, and working as an expert witness in a large Kentucky hemp case. Why he turned down a deal that would have owned his name and face, and why he answers "exit plan?" questions the way he does. His role as a San Diego cannabis social equity applicant and the county buffer rules, where he walked staff through the pros and cons and the county went with his 600-foot recommendation over the 1,200 to 1,500 feet some cities wanted. "Once you get arrested, the worst thing has happened and you really become an advocate for the plant at that point." - Farmer Tom Lauerman "Being an advocate's more about being an educator." - Farmer Tom Lauerman "There's still a lot of us in the trenches fighting." - Farmer Tom Lauerman Connect Farmer Tom: the Farmer Tom Organics website. He's Farmer Tom Lauerman on Instagram, X, Facebook and LinkedIn. Your host, Mr. Gudwudz (Just Jay): mrgudwudz.com and gudwudz.com. Meet him on

3. 

   25 Jun 2026

   Dan Serard: How to Market Cannabis When the Platforms Are Against You

   Most cannabis brands believe the product sells itself. Dan Serard, Chief Revenue Officer of Cannabis Creative Group, has watched hundreds of them find out it doesn't. On this episode of Unscripted Cannabis, host Mr. Gudwudz (Just Jay) puts his own brand on the table and Dan turns the conversation into a live consulting session. Dan has been with the agency since it started in 2018 under the name Champ Digital. It has since worked with more than 600 clients in about 36 states, all with in-house, US-based staff. Before cannabis he ran fitness clubs in downtown Boston and Santa Monica, where he set out to be "the mayor" who knew every member and business owner. That education-first, no-hard-sell habit is what he brought to cannabis. His profile is on the Cannabis Creative Group team page. The full written recap, with the 90-day plan laid out step by step, is at Dan Serard: How to Market Cannabis When the Platforms Are Against You. In this episode Why Meta and Google flag cannabis and ancillary brands: no promotion of sales, no "$30, buy one get one" offers, and no smoke or smoking imagery. Dan's team still runs compliant digital advertising by leaning on lifestyle and education, and he explains why AI-written ad copy misses those nuances. A live teardown of Gudwudz, the $20 handcrafted walnut smoking accessory: show it in people's hands, use real-world use cases and testimonials, and put the value proposition at the very top of the site, because you have less than a second to catch a scroller. "If you build it they will come" as the deadliest belief in the industry. Start local or regional, prove the concept, then expand, the way one client grew from 60-plus stores in Nashville to 20 more in South Carolina. Why cannabis spreads by word of mouth: the porch at the house party, where strangers become best friends. The two channels nobody can shut off. First, organic SEO, plus a Google Business Profile. Second, email marketing, which means building the list at events and trade shows. Acquisition versus retention: SEO, ads and awareness bring people in, and email, SMS and loyalty platforms like Alpine IQ keep them buying. Premium versus merely expensive. Nail the brand identity first (voice, tone, blacks, golds and mattes), stay consistent for three to five years, then refresh based on what customers say. What an engagement costs: everything is custom scoped, brand packages typically start around $5,000 and digital retainers around $1,500. "That's the kiss of death. I think if you build it they will come because you might have a great friend network, a great product, and you know, you think everyone wants it? Well, you gotta educate people why." - Dan Serard "SEO is always gonna be king when it comes to searching products online." - Dan Serard Dan's 90-day plan for any small brand: run a rebrand or positioning exercise so the brand reads as premium, fix the website's call to action and value proposition, and get the product into people's hands at events with a camera rolling. More on this theme from Unscripted Cannabis: You Have To Educate People Why...

4. 

   19 Jun 2026

   Becca Williams: The Difference Between Relief and Healing — Third Wave Cannabis and Emotional Liberation

   Just J sits down with Becca Williams, an emotions therapist and plant medicine guide at becawilliams.org. Becca spent years as a television news reporter, producer, and anchor before transitioning over the last decade into emotional liberation work and plant medicine guidance. She trained for four years in the Emotional Liberation framework — a Kundalini Yogi-developed system — and is also a clinical nutritionist. The conversation covers what Becca calls the third wave of cannabis use, the critical difference between relief and healing, why cannabis works as a nonspecific amplifier when paired with intentional inner work, the limits of talk therapy for trauma, the problem with psychedelic macro journeys whose glow fades, and what generational trauma looks like when the cycle finally stops. The Three Waves of Cannabis Becca positions her work as the third wave — beyond recreational use and beyond medical cannabis, into spiritual and conscious cannabis as a tool for emotional processing and trauma work. First wave: recreational (including what she calls adult use). Second wave: medical — treating specific ailments. Third wave: intentional, conscious use within a framework designed to support deep inner work. She doesn’t endorse cannabis without a container. The plant amplifies whatever state you’re already in. The work must provide the direction. Relief vs. Healing — The Core Distinction Becca’s defining framework: using cannabis as a palliative — getting baked through the hard parts, checking out on the couch — provides transitory relief. You feel better while it lasts. But the emotions return when the effect wears off because nothing was released. True healing is different: it conditions the nervous system, creates new neural networks, and permanently removes an emotional layer. Once a layer is processed through the Emotional Liberation framework, she promises her students they won’t need to do that specific work again. She learned this distinction through her own experience — she medicated with cannabis throughout her years in television and always felt better temporarily. The emotions always came back.

5. 

   19 Jun 2026

   Cannabis, Faith & the Architecture of Self: A Conversation with Just Jay

   About Just Jay Just Jay — known online as @MrGudwudz — is a community builder, systems thinker, middle school math and science educator of 13+ years, author, and the founder of Gudwudz (gudwudz.com), a handcrafted wooden smoking holder designed to bring intention and ritual to the smoking experience. Raised in Jackson, Mississippi, Justin spent his formative years questioning inherited systems — religious, social, educational — and dedicating himself to helping others design better ones. He is the author of multiple books, including Eternity in Real Time and The Point of Life, and writes at his Substack, Today in Eternity. He is currently transitioning from teaching to full-time entrepreneurship. What We Cover Growing up in Jackson, MS — how witnessing broken social and religious systems as a child planted a lifelong drive to build better ones The Gudwudz origin story — from a 2003 bamboo prototype to a walnut smoking holder that made its debut at the Cannabis Cup in Denver Cannabis, faith, and authenticity — how Jay reconciled being a church elder with founding a cannabis company, and why the internal journey matters more than external performance 20 years of writing — the difference between writing from the inside and writing for publication, and how AI finally helped him finish the book he'd been revising for two decades Legacy, loss, and ideas that persist — what losing his first wife to cancer and growing up with a father who died at 38 taught him about what truly lasts Episode Highlights The architect of your better self. Jay opens the conversation with a deceptively simple self-description: he's a systems builder. But what he means runs deeper — he's spent his life examining the systems people are handed (religious traditions, social norms, family patterns) and asking whether they actually serve the people inside them. Growing up as a young Black boy in Mississippi, inside a church that told him the world was written off and he should just stay safe, he started asking why. That question never stopped. Church elder meets cannabis founder — and why both can be true. Jay came up with the Goodwoods concept in 2003. His late first wife pushed back hard, telling him a church elder shouldn't be helping people smoke better. After she passed away from breast cancer that became lung cancer — the woman who never smoked — Jay decided he was done performing one version of himself for external approval. He reframed the 'wide vs. narrow path' scripture in a way that makes a compelling case for individual spiritual journeys over religious groupthink: if you're all walking arm-in-arm in the same direction, that's the wide path. If you're alone with God working out your own salvation, that's the narrow one. He also notes that ADHD — diagnosed at 48 — led him to cannabis for its focusing effects, which brought the doctrine vs. personal-experience tension into sharp relief. The Goodwoods business challenge: you have to try it to get it. Jay's core marketing problem is one any experiential product founder will recognize: demand is generated by experience, but getting the product to enough people to generate that experience requires existing demand. He got remarkable proof-of-concept at the Cannabis Cup in Denver and through a Tri-State Uber cannabis promotion — people who tried it immediately understood the difference. The bottleneck is creating that first moment at scale, especially when every major social platform except X bans cannabis-adjacent advertising. Legacy as ideas, not assets. Watching his first wif...

6. 

   13 May 2026

   Documentarian Jeremy Norrie: Cannabis From Healers to Big Business

   Explore the deep history and current challenges of the cannabis industry through the lens of documentary filmmaker Jeremy Norrie on the Unscripted Cannabis Podcast by Discount Vape Pen. We discuss legalization, social media impacts, documentary storytelling, and speculative trends like AI-generated content—offering insights into where the industry and society might be heading. Main Topics Jeremy Norrie's extensive history in cannabis activism and filmmaking The evolution of cannabis laws and industry guardrails The political, social, and economic forces shaping cannabis regulation Challenges and opportunities in media creation, especially social media and AI The metaphysics and unexplained phenomena linked to UFOs, spirits, and consciousness Ethical considerations and the future of content distribution and monetization Key Insights Jeremy's early involvement in cannabis activism includes pioneering dabbing tools and producing award-winning cannabis cup entries. The documentary journey traces cannabis from medicinal use and hemp advocacy to legalization and current regulatory collapse. A recurring theme in the industry critique is the discrepancy between legal frameworks and real-world exploitation, including tax wars and legal double standards. Social media’s uncontrollable algorithms heavily influence content visibility, incentivizing sensationalism over quality. The rise of AI offers creators new opportunities but also questions about authenticity, morality, and the future of storytelling. Jeremy’s exploration into UFOs, spirits, and consciousness highlights the importance of open-minded skepticism and the pursuit of truth. Human nature appears driven by survival and opportunism, but there remains a core desire for truth, morality, and connection. Timestamps 00:00 - Introduction to Jeremy Norrie's cannabis activism and documentary work 01:21 - Focus of Jeremy’s recent documentaries on legalization and regulation shifts 02:44 - The impact of industry regulations on cannabis entrepreneurs 03:41 - How policies have evolved from hemp freedom activists to medical and recreational laws 05:55 - Political double standards and tax issues in cannabis legalization 07:17 - Disparities between cannabis and alcohol regulations 08:44 - Industry opportunism, deception, and product mislabeling concerns 09:46 - The complexity of localized cannabis laws and medical versus recreational rights 10:34 - Jeremy’s current projects and a shift to exploring paranormal phenomena 11:33 - The story of cannabis industry legal battles and the "demonization" of certain products 12:46 - The wildest stories from Jeremy’s career and explorations of UFOs and spirits 14:23 - Accounts of alien encounters and interdimensional experiences 16:51 - The concept of astral projection and the metaphysics of levitation 19:24 - Jeremy’s journalistic approach to extraordinary claims and the importance of credibility 21:25 - Personal reflections on life, truth, and universal experiences 22:54 - The significance of lucid dreaming and altered states of consciousness 24:25 - The role of debunking and the search for truth in unexplained phenomena 26:28 - The influence of social media, AI, and algorithms on content dissemination 28:26 - Challenges of monetization and the impact of platform regulations on creators 31:36 - The “black box” of AI and algorithmic manipulation in content visibility 33:33 - The decreasing transparency and increasing unpredictability of digital platforms 34:45 - The parallels between digital marketing tricks and cannabis regulation loopholes 36:28 - The chaos of ever-changing legal landscapes in cannabis and...

7. 

   27 Apr 2026

   Len May: Cannabis, Your DNA, and Personalized Wellness

   Len May says healthcare is really sick care: a cookie-cutter, insurance-reimbursed system that treats the symptom in a 15-minute visit and never asks what caused it. He is the CEO and co-founder of EndoDNA, a genetics-first decision-support platform for functional and integrative practitioners with 11 patents behind it, and a former California dispensary owner who got into genetics after watching two people react differently to the same varietal. His background is on the EndoDNA about page. The method: read the DNA first, layer on bloodwork (a moment in time) and epigenetic markers, build a protocol across three levers (pharmaceutical, supplements, lifestyle), then close the loop with patient-reported outcomes plus what has been methylated or un-methylated, tuned over time by an LLM grounded on Anthropic's health model with EndoDNA's own guardrails. Jeremy's full recap, with the endocannabinoid explainer and the grandma-at-chemo case written out, is at Len May: Cannabis, Your DNA, and Personalized Wellness. In this episode Genes as a circuit breaker. Only 20 to 30 percent of the switches are on at birth. Food, environmental exposure and stress neurochemistry flip the rest. The stress-to-elbow-pain chain: a near miss floods you with cortisol, a genetic predisposition breaks down your own anandamide too fast, the immune system overreacts, and the doctor treats the elbow. Why a room of doctors went silent at Len's talk and then texted him questions for half an hour, and the LLM EndoDNA built so a practitioner can interrogate the genome in eighth-grade language on the EndoDNA platform. The endocannabinoid system, discovered in 1992, has nothing to do with smoking weed. Anandamide is Sanskrit for bliss. THC has a narrow therapeutic window, and today's 70 percent THC products are completely unnecessary. Addiction genetics: alcohol, opioid and amphetamine dependence genes plus impulsivity genes are a formula for disaster. Cannabis is not physically addictive, and sugar is probably more addictive than caffeine than cannabis. Grandma at chemo: a poor metabolizer on a high-THC gummy hallucinated and warned everyone off the devil's lettuce. Sublingual delivery, less THC, more CBD and linalool turned her into a walking referral. The full case is in his book Making Cannabis Personal. The tequila test. Nobody calls the tequila company after a rough night. Adults are accountable for the dose. Regulation: no federal testing standards, none at all for CBD, and a plea for federal quality control, prescribable tinctures and pharma collaboration without a ten-year FDA wait. Len's third book, Jack of All Trades, Master of Some, on ADHD and polymathy, and his show Everything is Personal. He posts as @lenmaydna on Instagram. "Your DNA is your life's GPS. It shows you where your potential potholes and where your traffic jams are in your own road, so by understanding this you can take specific actions to avoid those potholes." - Len May "It's the most regulated unregulated industry that we have." - Len May Related on Unscripted Cannabis: Mark Gillilan of Kyoto Botanicals on THC-free CBD, the founder Jeremy brings up on the regulation question,

8. 

   21 Jan 2025

   Exploring The Cannabis Marketing Space With Brady Madden

   There's a LOT to learn about marketing in the cannabis space, and Brady Madden, founder of has seen a LOT. In this conversation, Mack Lunn interviews Brady Madden, the founder of Evergreen SEO, an agency focused on the cannabis industry. Brady shares his journey from working in digital marketing to establishing his own agency, highlighting the unique challenges and opportunities within the cannabis market. He discusses the importance of SEO strategies tailored to cannabis businesses, the significance of brand recognition, and the role of technical SEO. Brady also emphasizes the need for measurable success through KPIs and the impact of AI on SEO practices. The conversation concludes with insights on navigating state regulations and how to reach Brady for potential collaboration.

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