Excerpt: There are many names for marijuana. We asked a pot entrepreneur which he prefers.

Excepts from James Brown in conversation with Vandy's Steve VanDeWalle

(Conversation transcribed using Otter.ai)

JAMES BROWN: Pot, weed marijuana, cannabis. Do you have a preference on the word we use for it?

STEVE VANDEWALLE: Cannabis.

JAMES BROWN: Why?

STEVE VANDEWALLE: Well, first of all, you know, the word marijuana does come with racial undertones. Racist undertones. It's just something that we've learned. You know, the term marijuana was used to stigmatize you know, black culture and Mexican culture. And even though most people don't even realize that and they just use the word marijuana, because that's what they grow up they grew up with, there's really not a lot of people, older family, and friends of mine. And you know, people that are younger still say marijuana, they're not saying it with racist intentions, by any means. I know that for a fact. But, you know, as the industry develops, our language needs to develop too. And I just think if we want to be considered, you know, a legitimate industry like anything else, we need to, you know, use language that helps us get there. So I always tell people, you know, cannabis is definitely the word of my word of choice.

How cannabis changed the life and career of a young entrepreneur with Steve VanDeWalle (@cannacumlaude)

JAMES BROWN: Which came first marijuana or business?

STEVE VANDEWALLE: Business actually. It goes back about 10 years at this point, and I'm getting old. I finished up my MBA, maybe like 2015 or 2014. And got the entrepreneurial bug. I started with and men's clothing, doing subscription ecommerce, men's T shirts, tank tops, stuff like that very basic, non branded clothing that transpired into a couple of things over the years consulting, you know, I was in that point as an entrepreneur where I was trying and failing and trying and failing and just had all these ideas. And that's just kind of this, that's what you do.

You just kind of grind it out until you figure it out until some stick. And you know, probably like six years into that journey. I started learning about this new molecule called CBD. You know, it came with the emergence of the 2014 Farm Bill, which legalized hemp as a commodity agricultural commodity. And what we realized is when you grow hemp, which is really just marijuana with less than point 3% THC in it, it grows inversely hi in a molecule called CBD cannabidiol. That was the new hot cannabinoid.

And kind of funny right around that time, I was taking a whole prescribed regimen of pharmaceutical drugs to manage anxiety and insomnia and depression. And it was really doing a number on my brain started to have mental health issues, I just had started to kind of spiral in a downward direction. And right around that time, I had a friend who is a nurse practitioner, who had gotten, you know, kind of an early jump in the CBD industry and said, hey, you know, there's this new cannabis molecule out there, you should try it for sleep. It's you know, it's early research, but this is something that people are saying they're using for sleep. So sure enough, I started using it.

And within just a little over a month, I was able to take myself off a 90% of the pharmaceuticals I was on and had really no negative side effects from it at all. And I spent the year after that, really diving into the research of what exactly was a cannabinoid? You know, what are all of these cannabinoids and molecules and how do they how do you grow them? And how do they you know, become you know what they are in the cannabis plant and understand in the endocannabinoid system in the human body. And it was this whole universe of knowledge that I was just becoming familiar with him.

You know, after I, you know, spent a whole year really learning and understanding I launched my CBD business Nextiva, which is really a company focused on health and wellness and creating and blending, you know, kind of combining the worlds of herbal medicine and cannabis medicine together to create natural products. And my one about that point, when I was there, I always knew that the final transition was going to be into THC. I obviously didn't really know when that was going to happen due to the nature of, you know, we were in the midst of still legalizing in New York State. And obviously, the rollout of the licenses has been a bit of a debacle.

But going back to our conversation that we had before we went on air back in September 2021 is when I you know officially made that transition from CBD into THC and launched Vandys, which is my craft cannabis brand. And really, that's been my only focus now along with the podcast. But, you know, at this point, it's really developed into this amazing brand of an amazing team of people. And now we're in the process of raising capital in preparation to secure a micro business license, which I'm hoping is going to happen in the next few months.

JAMES BROWN: Congrats.

STEVE VANDEWALLE: Thank you.

It's been a long road. It's I mean, it was 90% struggle and figuring it out and trying and failing. But you know, I guess I'm, you know, I'm no different than anybody else no smarter than anybody else. I just kind of was stubborn and took a risk and wasn't gonna let anything, you know, knock me down. And years later, I, you know, Vandy has really blossomed into this amazing thing. So yeah, it's been quite a ride, James, it's been quite a ride.

JAMES BROWN: There are two threads, I want to pull that out from your your soliloquy there that I find really interesting and could help help us as we pull apart this conversation.

STEVE VANDEWALLE: Sure.

JAMES BROWN: Let's start with the entrepreneurial bug. You chose to get an MBA, because you wanted to become an entrepreneur?