Rock and Roll Hall of Fame drummer Ginger Baker recently passed away at the age of 80. Jim Marty and Larry Mishkin pay tribute the co-founder of Cream's legendary career with concert stories. They also discuss the recent Ten Circuit US Court of Appeals ruling that cannabis companies must comply with federal employment laws. The landmark decision will have far reaching ramifications that will impact most cannabis businesses. Produced by PodCONX https://podconx.com/guests/jim-marty https://podconx.com/guests/larry-mishkin https://podconx.com/guests/rob-hunt
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame drummer Ginger Baker recently passed away at the age of 80. Jim Marty and Larry Mishkin pay tribute the co-founder of Cream's legendary career with concert stories. They also discuss the recent Ten Circuit US Court of Appeals ruling that cannabis companies must comply with federal employment laws. The landmark decision will have far reaching ramifications that will impact most cannabis businesses.
https://podconx.com/guests/jim-marty
https://podconx.com/guests/larry-mishkin
https://podconx.com/guests/rob-hunt
Jim Marty: [00:00:34] Hello, everybody, and welcome to the Deadhead Cannabis show, Jim Maadi here from Longmont, Colorado. Beautiful fall day here. I'm out in the barn and I got my partner, Larry Mishkin in Chicago. How you doing, Larry?
Larry Mishkin: [00:00:48] I'm doing just fine, Jim. Thank you. It is actually a beautiful day here as well. Unfortunately, I don't have a bath. So I'm sitting in my kitchen looking out at sunshine and a lovely day.
Jim Marty: [00:00:59] That's a beautiful time of year. Some people like this, this stretch from now till Christmas is their favorite time of year. I agree. Anyway, we got some things to talk about. Start out musically. It's been a lot of Cream and Eric Clapton on the radio because of Ginger Baker passing away.
Larry Mishkin: [00:01:16] Yeah. I had not been following him personally, you know, to know what his particular situation was. But the news really kind of caught me off guard. You know, it made me start thinking that unfortunately, we may be starting to hear a lot more of that kind of stuff with guys from that generation, just as he was 80 years old.
Jim Marty: [00:01:34] I was lucky enough to see Ginger Baker just a few years ago. He's still playing really well. He sat in with Ringo. They had two drum set set up for Ringo's All Starr Band. They played drums together for some of the songs and then for other of the songs, Ringo would come out front and sing like Yellow Submarine. Ginger Baker would be solo on drums. But yeah, we gave him a big round of applause when Ringo introduced them, when he came out and sat down in the drum kit next to Ringo's. So I do have a fond memory of Ginger Baker. That was 10 years ago. Yes. So not too long ago.
Larry Mishkin: [00:02:09] Cream and blind faith hope for me were fans that kind of helped me connect into the jam band scene and really kind of expanded my musical repertoire a little bit in terms of all the different sounds that they did. Seems like no matter which of these groups was out there, somehow Ginger Baker was always right in the middle of it. I kind of loved all the articles that they've been writing about him. It's a very eclectic guy.
Larry Mishkin: [00:02:32] He raised polo ponies and was as a polo player, which. Yes, cracked me up. That was his thing.
Jim Marty: [00:02:39] I guess there's a documentary about him to get the exact name of it. Something about Mr. Baker. Yeah.
Larry Mishkin: [00:02:45] That that shows his old side, I guess. They said that on stage he could be a little ornery sometimes, even with his own band mates, that he and Jack Bruce at some epic battles on stage. They were all playing together as part of Perri.
Jim Marty: [00:03:00] Interesting. Anyway, also musically, I just went out and got my nail and my tickets for Dead and co New Year's shows were there. So I'm looking forward to flying out to Los Angeles. I'll see the dead and shows on the twenty seventh and twenty eighth of December. Then they go up to San Francisco to do New Year's shows.
Larry Mishkin: [00:03:20] Oh, that'll be a lot of fun. It's always nice to see those kinds of shows. I haven't seen a dad do your show in years and years, but I always say whenever I was out one, where else would you rather be on New Year's Eve?
Jim Marty: [00:03:30] And then we're a few years ago. Our older son Matt was in New York for New Year's Phish and one of his friends said, Oh, I don't know if I want to spend $150 to see SheShe. And he said, where else are you going to go for four or five hours instead of only $150 on New Year's Eve in New York City to be completely entertained?
Larry Mishkin: [00:03:52] It's a great deal. I agree.
Jim Marty: [00:03:54] Let's go in on the marijuana world.
Larry Mishkin: [00:03:56] There's always a lot of stuff going on in the marijuana world. 30 second update, Illinois were in full swing with the applications. There is now, it turns out, going to be a trailer bill that's going to be discussed with the Illinois legislature. RECONVENES on October 28, sending a few shivers through the applicants and the industry because nobody's quite sure exactly what changes to expect. And this is right in the middle of the application process. And they made a decision not to have agencies issue rules because they believe that the statute was drafted with enough. That's a subsidy that it could substitute for the rules and that could keep the program moving forward. Unfortunately, it looks like there's going to be quite a few questions, including many around the social equity program and how it's played out. So it'll be interesting to see there's an opportunity on October 15th for the public descending questions that they have about the statute. And so we'll see how many questions get centered and what kind of answers we get. But that's moving forward. It's very exciting times in Illinois. Getting a lot of publicity. There's going to be a big conference next week in the Chicago land area that's being sponsored by the Chicago Reader, who is one of the big alternative newspapers in town. And they're bringing in a number of different people to come talk about adult use and what it means. I'm going to actually be doing a presentation on the legal ramifications of the do adult you still. But, you know, we're getting a lot of support from kind of plenty to say the Chicago readers. Page media, but in many respects it really is. Give it its circulation at how long it's been around. We're very, very excited about that and can't wait to see what happens next.
Jim Marty: [00:05:31] Oh, that'll be great for Illinois. We all look forward to twenty in Illinois. Over in my world, we're very busy wrapping up the last of the tax returns for 2018. The extended debate from the vigils and corporations is next Tuesday. On the Cannabis accounting side. I have to whine a little bit. We're just so disappointed at the way the marijuana companies keep their books. It seems like bookkeepers are very challenged to provide an accurate set of books that we can do a tax return from. And that's what drives us crazy. That's what keeps us going right till October 15th, trying to get these individuals and corporations done. And the books we get are just terrible. Zo'or's terrible. There's very few people who have good internal bookkeepers.
Larry Mishkin: [00:06:21] I can understand what you're saying, Jim. And I think that one of the things I tell anybody who comes into my office talked with me about representing them in their efforts to get a license. The very first question I ask them is, who is your accountant? When they don't Kazulin for me, I said, well, I'm going to give you some names because you've got to get yourself an accountant. You have to have somebody with business and financial knowledge who is leading you from the beginning, because if you don't, you're you're taking a crap shoot on 280 and anything else that can get in your way.
Jim Marty: [00:06:48] Of course, in full disclosure, Larry and I have several mutual clients and so including a new one that we spoke to this week. People come in all bright eyed and raring to go and think they have their capital lined up and they're going to have retail.
Jim Marty: [00:07:03] They might have distractions, Dena. cultivation. Many of these people have never had an employee before and they're going to have 50 employees.
Larry Mishkin: [00:07:11] It'll be very interesting to see how that's going to play out. Just like we always say, it's better to have a bill that we can complain about. Did not have a bill at all.
Jim Marty: [00:07:19] Now, is that. On a panel discussion yesterday at a CBD conference in Denver, which we'll talk about on another show. But on the business side, the panel discussion was had there was a banker and other CPA people who get financing, people who have a consulting business to try to get people bank accounts. The key word that was used throughout that panel discussion was transparency. The bank is going to bank you and it might be a Cannabis friendly bet, but they may or may not bank you. Cannabis business, even if you are at a Cannabis friendly bank if you're not transparent. So what do we mean by transparent? You know, today is the middle of October here. You should be getting your books from your bookkeeper for the month of September. We seen that people trying to cobble their books together for 2018 and 2019 is almost over. That's no way to run a marijuana company.
Larry Mishkin: [00:08:14] It's no way to run any company. Right. And that's the problem is, is that, you know, you have to impress upon people that this industry is just a business. You have to run this the way you would run any other of a lot more carefully because of all the regulation and potential speed bumps, like 280 people want to be involved in marijuana. And as you say, and as you know, I'm sure it causes headaches for you.
Larry Mishkin: [00:08:35] They don't have any business experience that will kill you just as much as if you were trying to go open up a restaurant and you've never run a restaurant.
Dan Humiston: [00:08:45] I want to take a quick break. To thank you for listening to today's show as the leading Cannabis podcast network. We're constantly adding new Cannabis podcasts to support our industry's growth. And that's why we're so excited to announce our newest podcast, The Cannabis Breakout, which premieres October 18th. The show's about the thousands of Americans who remain in prison for violating Cannabis laws that have long since been overturned. The Cannabis breakout gives Cannabis political prisoners a voice. If you're a former Cannabis prisoner or have a loved one who is a Cannabis prisoner, we want to share your story. Please go to MJBulls.com and sign up to be a guest.
Jim Marty: [00:09:29] Yeah. What else do you have going in your Cannabis were Al-Arish?
Larry Mishkin: [00:09:33] I'll tell you something that's happened, Jim. That is really, really fascinating. Reasons that we'll talk about right here. Just a week or so ago, the 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that the Fair Labor Standards Act, which is a federal statute, applies to workers in the Cannabis industry, just like workers who are in traditional and federally legal industries. And the court basically went on to say that even though marijuana cannabis is a Schedule 1 controlled substance, notwithstanding that the federal protections of the FLSA would apply. It came up in a case with a guy who was a surety guard for a Cannabis company, filed a claim saying that the employee refused to pay him federally mandated overtime. And the company. Claimed that the FSA League did not apply to Cannabis because Cannabis was a Schedule 1, so it wasn't entitled to federal protection. The appellate court ultimately disagreed, interestingly saying that it would give an unfair advantage to the Cannabis industry if it didn't have to comply with the FLSA. In the same way that other industries did. What I thought was really fascinating by that was that it didn't say that it would put employees in the candidates industry at an unfair disadvantage.
Larry Mishkin: [00:10:50] It focused on the industry owners and the way it would work that way, which is not something that I would have necessarily expected, that they were applying a federal right to part, make sure that employers in that industry didn't get an unfair advantage over other employers. They also said there is longstanding precedent that F.L. FLSA does traditionally apply to activities that cover illegal matters such as gambling and things like death. They said look at the FLSA has been amended a number of times since the Controlled Substance Act was passed in the 1970s and amended to include a number of different labor practices working in the candidates interest. Industry has never been one. As a result, workers in the Cannabis industry are now entitled to federally mandated minimum wage, overtime and other labor protections. And what's really amazing is that could potentially lead to claims under title suffered four types of discrimination claims and things like that that are also employee protection, but they're part of federal law. So the idea has been these would necessarily apply to Cannabis businesses.
Jim Marty: [00:11:55] You wonder if companies with over 50 employees then would also have to provide health insurance.
Larry Mishkin: [00:12:00] Great question. Right. Apparently, the court said notwithstanding the illegality of marijuana, it's important to recognize your rights as employees in an industry, even if it's federally illegal. Written by a judge who's been on the bench for a number of years and the 10th Circuit, which covers, relatively speaking, conservative part of the country, which is also interesting in terms of the nature of the ruling. I can see where employers in the industry might be a little disappointed by it, but there's certainly an argument to be made that the type of industry that we all imagine the cannabis industry being is one where everybody is from top to bottom is treated with a certain amount of fairness. So I think it's interesting. I haven't seen a major pushback from Cannabis employers. Have you heard anything from any of your clients?
Jim Marty: [00:12:45] No. There really hasn't been a lot of lawsuits on fair labor standards, but we have encouraged our clients that if you get over 50 employees, you probably should provide health insurance just like every other business in the country is required to do. The other piece of federal law that case you just mentioned brings into the forefront is can owners of Cannabis companies file for bankruptcy? We had a case in Colorado. The better part of 10 years ago now where a Cannabis company tried to seek bankruptcy protection under federal law. And the judge said, no, you are illegal at the federal level. You don't get the protection of the bankruptcy courts. Hopefully that will change because some of these people end up with large tax bills. They can't pay any other U.S. citizen. If you are truly broke and can't pay your taxes, you can file bankruptcy three years after the tax return is file. So taxes that are over 3 years old can be dismissed in bankruptcy. And so we'll see if that applies to the marijuana industry over the next few years. But as of now, yeah, I don't believe bankruptcy courts are available, at least I haven't contested in recent years to see if they're available for people in the cannabis industry.
Larry Mishkin: [00:14:02] Well, you know, it did. It's going to really be fascinating to see you willing to recognize certain rights or conversely, obligations that are imposed by federal law that some might otherwise assume don't apply in an industry that's not recognized by the federal government as being legal or legitimate.
Jim Marty: [00:14:21] And as we've discussed, I don't see any movement at the federal level until well after the 2020 election. I don't see that the federal government is in any mood to make any changes. Of course, we've discussed on past shows that Safe Banking Act is now open to the Senate. So we'll see if any bills get out of Congress and get signed. Other than housekeeping bills over the next year, I really didn't see a number of years.
[00:14:46] Listen to the political debates on the Democratic side. I listened to Trump's speeches that he had this week. The good news, in my opinion, is the word marijuana never comes up. It is not a campaign issue for 2020 at all. And it's kind of like a no news is good news situation.
Larry Mishkin: [00:15:04] Yeah, I agree with that. I think, you know, as the states are coming on line one after another. Doing just fine without a lot of federal intervention and topic for us to really get into on another day, Jim. Be careful what you wish for category. Right? When things go legal and it solves issues like. And to AEG, which will be nice issues to get resolved. We're going to find ourselves with a host of other issues as all the various regulatory agencies in the United States, all from walking in and exercising their, you know, their newfound regulatory jurisdiction, just like the FDA has done with CBD. It's going to be interesting to see when we come online how we come online and what impact that has.
Jim Marty: [00:15:43] Yes. And the vape pen scare seems to be settling down. I haven't heard in the last week or so of any new deaths or cases reported. Doesn't seem to have hurt sales terribly among our client base.
Larry Mishkin: [00:15:58] And I agree, I have not seen or heard of any real slowdown in sales from the companies that I work with and people who I've spoken with. The consumers do seem to be getting a little more educated, though. They have players who have said that they've been approached by their customers wanting to know where big plans were manufactured. What Kathy has been going on to ensure that the oil is piped with anything like the Viterbi acetate that may or may not have been causing the problems before. And I think that's great that people pay attention to those kind of things and know enough to be able to ask those questions shows that we do have, you know, educated people who want to really make this industry as safe as it can be.
Jim Marty: [00:16:37] And then for another show, the whole Hemp CBD market is coming on strong. And there you have another multi billion dollar Cannabis industry with THC, a low point 3 percent. And unlike smokeable, flower CBD is almost all manufactured products, tinctures and creams and bath bombs. Well, you know, marijuana. You can just grow it, try it out and sell it. So the CBD industry has another level of sophistication with all the manufactured products. There's some day tens, but there's a lot of other products out there on CBD. The difference of the CBD conference is you can sell your products there. You can cross state lines. You can bring your products down in Chicago and Salomon, Denver. And most of the booths were selling their products and giving samples. And I said, well, how much is your top shelf tincture here? Three hundred dollars for a little tiny, maybe a two or three ounce bottle. I said three dollars. I said, do you able to get that price? He able to sell it at that price. And they said, it's our top shelf. It's $300 a bottle is our top seller. That's unbelievable. I guess we shouldn't switch it back to music. We have talked about some of our favorite Grateful Dead shows where Phish shows over the years this long before Larry and I knew each other. We were both at Silver Bowls shows outside of Las Vegas. The U.N. Elda Football Stadium is called the Silver Bowl.
Jim Marty: [00:18:06] Every May for three or four years in the early 90s, the Grateful Dead would play shows in late May or early June, which is a great time to be in Las Vegas because it's not unbearably hot yet. But you could have outdoor shows at night and be perfectly comfortable in a T-shirt. But those shows were where real who really good shows, in fact. That's where I saw my last Grateful Dead show was the Silver Bowl. May of ninety. Three months before Jerry Duds.
Larry Mishkin: [00:18:33] Well, I always enjoyed going to those shows because they played great shows. Because the surroundings were really pretty amazing if there was a college football stadium. So it wasn't too huge. It was like, you know, being in an NFL sized stadium. He had pretty good sightlines, but the surrounding landscape was absolutely incredible. We were there one year with a thunderstorm off in the distance, with the lightning crashing down while they were playing and all sorts of great stuff. And then, of course, nothing could beat the post-show 35000 deadhead descending on the strip.
Larry Mishkin: [00:19:07] The funny part was it didn't see that unusual that he couldn't always tell who the Deadheads were getting out of that show at midnight and then going out to the wee hours gambling and carrying on in Las Vegas. I remember one year I was at a little place right next to Circus Circus called Slots Slots of fun. And it was shoulder to shoulder with Deadheads to three o'clock in the morning. Somebody would win a hand on the table and howled and the whole place would take it off and there'd be glass breaking and people howling and the dealers they'd stop dealing with. Pretty soon we started howling and they'd start dealing again over the years.
Larry Mishkin: [00:19:44] We could see some good shows. I saw them out there. I saw two shows they played in ninety one and then the three show run that they did in 92 92 shows were a lot of fun. We were out there for my good buddy Alix's. That's the party we were staying in the Golden Nugget at Old Pal tell Las Vegas.
Larry Mishkin: [00:20:02] And we'd come back every night for the midnight steak and eggs breakfast, which was always very appropriate at the end of the shows. That trivia. The second night there I caught my first F-18's. It was my baby eighty. That show was the first time I heard him play high times. All right. It was one of those, you know, patience pays off. Finally, what was great about that weekend is that the Steve Miller band was the opening band for them and the last night he came out with them. I want to say, you know, from the space all the way through to the end, they did a great Addicks of my life. Then they played a spoonful, which Bobby plays really well. It period. Steve Miller was up there jamming away. A great other one closed with morning dew. And then I caught my first Baba O'Reilly tomorrow. Never knows double life. For if you recall, Vince welding put push that one in and did a lot of the singing of the Bob O'Reillys tomorrow. Never knows. That was a great double line for to getting some classic rock tunes on the Grateful Dead setlist.
Jim Marty: [00:21:02] I had so much fun at those shows in Las Vegas. I remember I did get in a little bit of trouble when I got back to our campground. There was broad daylight six o'clock in the morning and my wife was very concerned and upset that I had been gone all night. But luckily, I've been winning at the blackjack tables. I pulled out a handful of dollars. Where have you been told that? A handful of dollars. I've been gambling. I was winning. Crazy times in Las Vegas with the Grateful Dead. Those were great times. All right, everybody. So next week, we'll talk more about the CBD industry and the CBD event that I was at and talk on a panel on safe banking. Just a quick lead into that. Some banks are now opening up to Cannabis and CBD, but not marijuana. But yet there's still a deep background check that's done by the compliance department. It is still challenging even for CBD companies to get banking. So we'll dive into that next Deadhead Cannabis show. Until then, goodbye, everybody.
Larry Mishkin: [00:21:59] Jim, thank you as always. Everybody, have a great weekend. A great weekend. We will begin with you.
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