Cannabis Expo — What is the expo all about and why should you be interested

So we're talking cannabis expo, and that kicks off, I believe, this Friday, the 28th, and runs up to and including Sunday. We got two of the exhibitors here, so let's say good evening to gentlemen. Firstly, Wesley Young from BioLeaf Technology. How is it, Wesley? Oh, hang on, let me turn your right microphone on. Let's try that again. - Okay, am I turned on now? - No, you are, well, I don't know. Are you? And Andrew was worried he was gonna say stupid stuff. I told you that's my duty. Anyway, okay. Is it Wesley or Wes? What do people call you? - No, Wesley, Wes. - Wesley, Wes. - No, whatever, whatever the gospel comes for. - Hey, you, yeah, I answer to a lot of things as well. So you're from BioLeaf Technology, and then Andrew Kiriakko from Kerican. - Thank you for having me. - Good evening. - Good evening. - Nice to have you guys here. - Thanks for having us. - Okay, so we're gonna get into what you do, but before we get into what you do, let's talk a little bit about the cannabis expo, because you guys have, you've been involved since, it's been now Pretoria, Cape Town, Durban, and now back to Joburg. - Yeah, there's been four expos that had last one, or the first ever cannabis expo was in Pretoria last year.

So that was the first one, and it was brilliant. I think we had around about 80 exhibitors, and now we've gone along the journey. Pretoria, Cape Town, then Durban, and now Santin, where we've got just over 200 exhibitors. - Say what? - It is massive, it is, and it's brilliant. I actually, while I'm sitting talking to you now, and actually just see how this cannabis expo has progressed, I've got goosebumps, because it's just,

it's finally people are getting out and talking about what we've been doing for thousands of years. - And this to me is the most important bit, because I've had people and listeners as well, and people I know afterwards, because a couple of weeks ago I had Trevor Parkinson on, and we were talking about CBDs and cannabis, et cetera, and everybody's to me, "Are you mad? "People are gonna come to flying school, "they're gonna arrive here, and I'm not gonna, why? "I'm not advocating drug use." I was talking specifically about the medical aspects, the health benefits of it, but this is a conversation we need to be having. This is what this country should be about. We should be able to talk about stuff, am I right? - We should, and Kirikan has avoided the first three expos for that specific reason. We don't want to be seen as a company that's doing this, but now, after a year, we've decided to participate at the expo because the conversation has to be had. We've come out into the open, now this is what we do, it's been a business that we've been running for four years, and the cannabis expo is the right platform to do this, and also the convention that they're having. I visited Wesley at the previous three expos as a visitor, but now we're gonna be there with him as an expo ourselves.

- Now, when you do this, let's talk in terms of the law, cannabis has been decriminalized for personal use, I believe, in your home, I'm not terribly clued up on the law there, but somebody was saying to me, but how can they allow this cannabis expo? You're gonna get a bunch of potheads and junkies going in, and I'm like, in my experience, not so much. What do you say to people that are sitting on the fence? I mean, I know what my advice would be, my advice would be, go and have a look, don't be afraid of it, because it's those kind of conversations when you're afraid of it, and I'm not one that wants to sit down and smoke a joint and get stoned off my face, 'cause I don't like the feeling. However, the health benefits for me, and we've spoken about this on air before, specifically in terms of my neuropathy, diabetes, those kind of things, I cannot deny how good it's been, and the kind of pain I've been in for seven years to then find CBD oil and have that pain relieved. It's like, why? Where has this been all this time? - I think, David, if I can just talk about a lot, there's always been the stigma around dacha, cannabis, marijuana, and stuff like that. We've got to remove the stigma, so when the guys of the cannabis expert came along and started putting these expos together, when people start or are given the platform to talk about these sort of in inverted commas to boost subjects, you know, we can actually realize that there's a lot of good that will come out of this.

Cannabis has been around since Genesis, okay? It has been. - Yeah, absolutely. - Our bodies have got an endocannabinoid system inside. - Yeah, I actually watched the entire documentary on the ECS, or the endocannabinoidal system, and that's what actually got me started on this path to gaka. Either these guys are talking absolute nonsense, but then the stuff keeps on coming up. Fundaments, daughter used to have massive seizures, like three, four, five, six a day. Put her on the CBD oil, she's all for her medication, she's now able to function. - You know, David, I think the time to argue and dispute the fact if cannabis has got health benefits, I think those days are over. We now need to look forward and we need to see what other health benefits we can get from all the other cannabinoids. You've mentioned CBD, which is a cannabinoid that helps bring the body into balance. You've mentioned the guys who smoke and get high, there's THC. There's 113 cannabinoids that have been isolated. You know, last week we were on the show, the latest research then was 108 cannabinoids. Now we're sitting at 113 cannabinoids. And the Cannabis Expo is a platform for the general public just to come and have a look and see what health benefits are available and what products are available for people.

Come and see the recreational side of it as well, which is the THC with the vape lounges there. So you can get a whole mix of everything to see and to try and understand for yourself why this plant was made illegal for so many years. It's an educational process, industry's there, the government is there, there's health professionals that are going to be there at the convention. We're sitting on the panel with a couple of professors from universities discussing what Africa's role is in the global cannabis playing field. And yeah, it's going to be interesting and it's going to be exciting times there. You look at, I mean, in terms of the cannabis industry, I mean, look at Israel, look at what Israel is doing. We are so far behind there. I mean, I think we need to do some catching up. - So we are far behind in terms of being out there. But if we just go and have a look at some of the statistics regarding South Africa, 2,800 tons are produced cannabis a year in the black market. So yes, we are behind the times, but above the line. But let's not forget what's been going on below the line. The traditional healers, 800,000 traditional farmers that are here that I have been farming cannabis for the entire life, it's there, it's always been there.

This is one of the old apartheid laws that needs to be abolished is the prohibition of cannabis. If you just take the money that spends a big farmer in terms of doing research on what disparate or grandpas can do, okay? - Which comes from-- - Just take that money, just put it into cannabis and see how the benefits, as what Andrew was saying, the benefits that can be derived. We know so, well, we think we know so much and we actually do know quite a bit. But if you look at the quantum of what we actually know about what cannabis can do, we know nothing. Because we have, everybody's been, prohibition is the worst thing that anything, anybody that can do to a industry, and we need to really put all of this aside.

Not any government in the world is gonna stop anybody growing cannabis. The latest court ruling in September that you referred to earlier was great. This is a privacy, we call it the privacy judgment, where we are able to now smoke and consume and cultivate cannabis for personal consumption. Because if I wanna do that, that's my personal right, that's my human right. So let me do that. As long as I'm not interacting with or discriminating in other people or harming anybody else around me, then it's fine, I can do that in my own personal court. But now let's take this industry, let's create an all-inclusive industry. I mean, if you look at what the legends, Jules and Myrtle, the Dacher couple are doing with their nonprofit organization, Fields of Green for All, they in the forefront of fighting for proper legislation and all-inclusive regulation. Regulation's too much a strong word, I know Jules will shoot me when I say that regulation. But there needs to be collaboration between the government and the cannabis community. - I think so. And I mean, to me, if you get it legalized and there's a framework, number one, you're gonna stop making some money from tax. That just makes a bit of sense to me.

Anyway, it's running this weekend. I'm gonna open the lines now. If you'd like to get yourself a complimentary double ticket, you can, tell me who one of my guests are. So Wesley Young is here from BioLeaf Technology, Andrew Kiriakko from Kerican. Let me know who one of the guests are. 41348 SMS is charged at 150. Otherwise you can WhatsApp me, 0848220938. Same thing, if you've got any questions you'd like to ask the guys anything, this is your platform. We're open, we're talking, you can let us know. Let's get on to a couple of things about what you guys do though. Wesley, let's start with you. You're gonna be there, you're on the panel, you're an exhibitor, BioLeaf Technology. What is BioLeaf Technology? - So BioLeaf Technology is a company that we first started off producing a soilless medium. So that's the substrate or the soil that you would wanna grow cannabis plants in. Okay, so for a good plant, a strong plant, you need a good medium for the roots to develop and grow. So we, over many years of trial and error and stuff like that, we've come up with this medium that works out, well, that provides the best possible environment around the roots to actually grow cannabis in. So we focused on air porosity, pH, water holding capacity.

So that's how technical it is. We've also gone, we took that research and we presented a research paper to the World Perlet Institute in Milan in September this year. And we actually did trials on 14 different types of mediums. So we've really gone in depth to have a look at what works and what doesn't work and et cetera, et cetera. So that's the one aspect of the business. The other aspect has been very fortunate enough to be partners with the best and biggest growers, indoor cannabis growers in the world. And that's Lux Larting and their affiliation with the company or the guys from Jungle Boys. These guys hang 7,000 lats in an indoor facility and they produce the best quality indoor marijuana that's around to date. You know, these guys have started off in their garage. They've been arrested and all that sort of stuff. And they've worked through the old, you know, they've lived the story, they've worked the journey. So we've got the distribution rights for Africa. So we're very proud of that. - Hang on now, 'cause sorry, I'm distracted by shiny objects. So you've got the medium and you've partnered with Lux Larting. Are you distributing the lighting? Is that what you're saying? - Yeah, we're the distribution agents for Lux Larting.

And I can vouch for his medium because when the privatization law came out a year ago, I reached out to Wesley and I got some of the bi-leaf technologies medium. And we've been using it for our own research and development purposes. And I met Wesley only last week, so his product is quite incredible. - Well, that's fantastic. - And then the last thing is you'll see at the expo is that we're bringing some other stuff, the nutrient side of the business. So Athena and Power ASR. So these are the nutrients that the Jungle Boys have used to actually grow cannabis. So there's the whole trifecta. There's the medium, there's the lats, and there's the nutrients. So that's what we try to bring to South Africa, to the market, both from a closet grower, so a personal home grow, to some of these big commercial operations like you find in Lesotho. - Fantastic stuff. So many, so many messages have just come through. I'm gonna choose a winner right now. Kerry, thank you very much. You got it right. Wesley Young from BioLeaf Technology. Well done, Kerry. I'll be in touch with you regarding that set of double tickets coming your way. Also have a winner now for the Futures Alchemist as well. So thank you very much.

Let's move on to you, Andrew. Kerry Can, so what is Kerry Can, what does it do? - We are a cannabis company in South Africa. We only delve in CBD because that is what's legal here. We're a small family business that we run out of a GMP compliant lab here in Johannesburg, South Africa. So all our products are made locally here by ourselves. Everything is handmade. We make health products from pet oils to CBD oils like you've mentioned before, to shampoos, to soaps. We make edible products with CBD only. We've also got body oils that we make. So in South Africa, we specifically focusing on CBD, a whole range of CBD products, sustainable, handmade. And our advantage is that we infusing a whole host of South African botanicals that you can't find anywhere else in the world into our products, which have got amazing health benefits. And yeah, that's basically we're a nice small family business making what we believe are amazing products. - Now, when you talk about this, okay, because I've got a Alsatian Cross Ridgeback. She's now 13 years old. Her hips were going. I was told, sorry buddy, you know that happens with these dogs. You're gonna have to put it down. I see it's gonna be a cold day in hell and we will all be invited to the skating party.

Before I do that, I've put her on cannabis infused glycerin. CBD infused glycerin drops twice a day. She is like a new dog. - So all mammals have got an endocannabinoid system. And we've been blessed with having a cannabis plant that also the endocannabinoid system makes endocannabinoids. Plants provide us phytocannabinoids to supplement. So these days with our lifestyles, with our diets and everything, we're not pretty sure.