Welcome to High Minded by The Cannabist, our podcast diving into the stories, news and voices shaping a new billion-dollar industry.
High Minded is a podcast in three acts, hosted by The Cannabist’s staff.
Act I features serial news storytelling from our team of award-winning journalists. Season one is hosted by Alicia Wallace. In Act II, Cannabist editor Alex Pasquariello leads “The Conversation” with marijuana’s movers and shakers in government, law and business. For Act III, we turn over the microphone to leaders on all sides of the legalization movement in a segment we call “Closing Arguments.”
Enjoy our third episode, subscribe so you don’t miss any of Season One, and follow this podcast on Twitter at @HighMindedCast. Got feedback or a nominee to be on the podcast? Drop us a line here.
High Minded by The Cannabist
Season 1, Episode 3
[podcast]
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Act I
CBD, TBD with Alicia Wallace
CBD research is going to the dogs in quest to help pets
High Minded continues its Season 1 serial series “CBD, TBD” in Fort Collins, Colorado, with Riley. The 135-pound Newfoundland lumbers her way into a laboratory at Colorado State University’s Veterinary Teaching Hospital and is greeted by scientists with hefty, loving nudges and sloshes of slobber.
Riley is a favorite at the Colorado State University Veterinary Teaching Hospital, where she’s among a few dozen pooches participating in one of the first scientific clinical trials assessing the efficacy of cannabidiol in treating certain canine ailments.
The non-psychoactive cannabis compound isn’t just hailed for its potential medicinal benefits in humans — the anecdotal evidence emerging from legal marijuana states has some pet owners wondering if CBD could be a life-improving medicine for man’s best friend. In Colorado, CBD-rich whole plant hemp extracts already are available for purchase online or at the neighborhood pet shop down the street.
Act II
The Conversation, hosted by Alex Pasquariello
High Minded’s Season 1 Conversation is framed by a months-long correspondence The Cannabist has dubbed “The Sessions Letters.”
Since April 2017, the U.S. attorney general Jeff Sessions has sent missives to officials in the first four states to legalize adult-use marijuana: Alaska, Colorado, Oregon and Washington. In the letters, Sessions has raised serious questions about their respective regulatory and enforcement regimes.
High Minded convened a panel of Colorado’s top government officials to discuss their state’s response to Sessions.
In this episode, the topic is youth use and prevention.
The Conversation unpacks how Colorado is keeping its residents safe with:
- Mark Bolton, adviser to Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper on marijuana policy
- Dr. Larry Wolk, executive director and Chief Medical Officer for the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment
- Michael Hartman, executive director of the Colorado Department of Revenue, the agency that oversees the state’s Marijuana Enforcement Division.
- Glenn Davis, highway safety manager for Colorado Department of Transportation
- Kristi Kelly, executive director of Marijuana Industry Group, a state-based trade association facilitating ongoing public-private collaboration to realize the state’s public safety and health goals.
Act III
Closing Arguments
The Closing Arguments are made in this episode by Nick Johnson, an historian based in Colorado and author of “Grass Roots: A History of Cannabis in the American West.” He wrote an op-ed, originally published on The Cannabist, in response to the Colorado Springs Gazette’s Editorial Board declaring on November 10, 2017, “Colorado legalization anniversary nothing to celebrate.”
