-Hey, Jim, welcome to the show.
-Wow. Good afternoon, Seth.
Thank you. It's good to be here.
-So I want to ask about this show...
-Yeah. -...which is about your foray
into cannabis farming, but I want to start by asking,
how did you decide to become a cannabis farmer?
-Totally by accident.
I got this really sweet little property
on the Rogue River in Southern Oregon.
And the property behind me is an 80-acre farm.
And it came up for sale.
I bought it. And I was like, uh, now what?
Uh, hay, alfalfa, corn, cattle.
And it just so happened that the cannabis was legal
in the state of Oregon just that year,
and I went, "Well..."
Got a couple guys,
one Captain Jack who used to be the weed dealer
at "SNL" in the early '70s.
-That's great. -Yeah.
-That's really exciting because I do think you worry
that with the legalization of cannabis
that it might become a little corporate.
It's really nice to know that you're working with
a guy named Captain Jack. -Captain Jack.
Well, there are no corporate guys in the field.
They're all old-time growers.
Old spiritual creatures. Agriculturalists.
Really natural, natural ingredients.
The corporate guys kind of came in to see where the money is,
but...and now I've become one of them.
-Well, you look -- I will say, you do not --
laying eyes on you, I am not in any way worried
that you've gone corporate.
You look very -- -[ Laughs ]
You look way more like a guy who'd be hanging out
with Captain Jack than -- -Yeah.
-Do you name -- do you help name the different strains, Jim?
-Well, I have one -- we have about six, seven strains.
And one is Captain Jack's, of course.
We call it the Smell of "SNL." -[ Laughs ]
-Because that's what it was known as back then,
the Smell of "SNL."
Because it was the hallways, you know, in the early '70s.
-Sure. Sure.
-I have one called Cherry Pie that I really like, Seth,
because it's a very low THC.
It's like 18%.
But it has like 3% terpenes,
which is the flavor and the smell.
And with a little bit of CBD,
the three of them create what they call an entourage effect.
Which is just kind of this calming,
there's no anxiety and there's no paranoia.
You can still be chill and sweet.
Actually, I named it because
I would come downstairs at night,
and my wife would go, "Are you hungry?"
I'd go, "Yeah." And she goes, "Let's go out to eat."
"Okay." "What do you have a taste for?", she'd say?
I went -- well, I'm from Chicago,
I wanted cheeseburgers.
She goes, "Oh, Jim, it's a little heavy for me.
Anything else?"
"Well, how about some sushi?" "Oh.
I had sushi with my mom last night.
Anything else?"
"Well, how about if we go to a natural food --"
"Cilantro, cilantro, cilantro,
they put cilantro everything."
"What are you wasting my time for?
You know we're going to eat where you want to eat
and eat what you want to eat!"
-[ Laughs ]
-So now I take one little hit,
because I'm a microdoser, I only take one little bit.
-Yeah. -I come downstairs and she says,
"Are you hungry?" "Yeah."
"You want to go out to eat?" "Sure."
"Where do you want to go?"
I go, "Baby, we can go to Taco Bell
as long as you're sitting across from me.
-Ah, see? -And she's like --
-What a great advertisement.
-"Aren't you being charming?" Right?
And so I call that strain the Marriage Counselor.
-Oh, the Marriage Counselor. That is...
-I told that story in Oregon, Seth,
and it sold out in two months.
I can't even keep it. -[ Laughs ]
-Women are coming into dispensaries --
-Very good marketing.
-And they come into dispensaries and say,
"Where's that Marriage Counselor?
He needs some."
And on the other end, I have a thing
called Black Diamond, which the veterans really like
because it helps with the PTSD and pain and sleep.
And especially the PTSD.
And one of my friends is paralyzed
from the chest down and his legs go into spasms.
And this Black Diamond stops those spasms.
And so it's really --
there's a lot of medicinal properties to this.
And I call that one Assisted Living.
-That is -- well, you're obviously providing
a service there.
You're also real world philanthropic --
you know, I should say efforts.
Can you talk a little bit about the Last Prisoner Project?
Because I think it's a really great organization
that's taking into account that what used to be illegal
is now not, and yet there's still plenty of people
serving jail time for marijuana.
-Seth, there's 40,000 prisoners
that are serving jail time for non-violent
cannabis consumption or possession.
There's a guy named Michael Thompson in Michigan.
I hope the governor of Michigan is watching this.
Please release him.
He got sentenced to 40 to 60 years
for having three pounds of cannabis.
He's been in for 25 years.
He is now -- we wanted to get him out
because we were scared for him to get COVID.
He has COVID. He's in the hospital.
And this should not be a death sentence
for something that is legal, it's medicine,
it's non-violent, and there's thousands of prisoners.
Steve DeAngelo and myself and a few other people
are on the board, and we're trying to get
these people out of prison.
And it's always -- it's always been communities of color
subject to the disappropriateness
of this kind of practices.
And it's -- So I'm part of that.
-That's great that you're doing that.
This is such a fun show.
It's really cool to see you behind the scenes of this farm
and the travels you make to Colombia among other places.
-Oh, yeah. -Thanks so much for making --
-I went to Colombia for nine days with cameras
and improvised the whole time.
And it's probably the middle part of our three episodes.
It's on Discovery coming up on Wednesday the 19th.
-Well, I can't wait. And thank you so much
for making time for us, Jim. Always a pleasure to see you.
-You know, Seth, it's always a pleasure to see you
and thank you so much for your time.