Every single day you hesitate, your marketing budget is bleeding out on platforms actively sabotaging your pipeline. Vanishing organic reach, skyrocketing ad costs, sudden algorithmic shadow bans that wipe out your revenue overnight. If you're still pouring money into channels that throttle your business, you are throwing capital straight into an incinerator. WMR.FM gives you the unfair B2B advantage your competitors don't want you to have. Zero corporate red tape, zero platform restrictions. When you lock in with us, we don't just drop you into one quiet slot, we deploy your message across our entire network, weaponizing every flagship show and 20 years of on-demand archives. That's instant, guaranteed, unrelenting exposure to millions of high-income founders, C-suite executives.
and enterprise buyers with deep pockets ready to spend today. Sponsorship slots across our top feeds are strictly capped, and they move fast. Do not get locked out while your competitors take your market share. Email brasco at wmr.fm. That's B-R-A-S-C-O at wmr.fm. Secure your spot before it's gone. Sowing the seeds of cannabis and sounding the praise of our favorite plants, it's time to Hemp Presents. Our radio resident hemposapien Vivian McPeak will present a weekly platform for guests and listeners to Hemp Presents about hemp and cannabis from the legal, activist, and reformist route.
Let's round up and roll it up for our Headmaster of Hemp, Vivian McPeak. Welcome to the Hempresent Resistance, seeking to defeat the alternative facts of Prohibition, one interview at a time and advocating for the plant, the whole plant, and nothing but the plant. Join me for a weekly read for Radio Rebellion as I speak with some of the principal risk takers, movers, and shakers, and history makers of the cannabis industry, culture, and reform movement. I am your host, Vivian McPeak. I am the executive director of the world's largest annual cannabis policy reform event, the Seattle Hemp Fest, entering its 29th year speaking flower to power and found at hempfest.org. I'm also the author of the book Protestable, a 20-year retrospective of Seattle Hemp Fest from AHA Publishing.
also found at hempfest.org. If you have feedback or would like to suggest a guest or topic, email me at hempresent at gmail.com. Today's guest on Hempresent is veteran journalist and media professional, Ricardo Baca, who will join me in about 30 seconds. Full-service communications firm Grasslands, a journalism-minded agency, has launched De-Stigmatize, an Instagram TV docu-series documenting America's ever-transforming relationship with the cannabis plant. The docu-series will feature more than 120 episodes, with each short documentary capturing an individual story about how cannabis has improved their life. Arno Baca, CEO and founder of Grasslands, is a 20-year veteran journalist, keynote speaker, TEDx veteran, and thought leader in modern media and drug policy circles. Ricardo served as the Denver Post's first-ever marijuana editor.
and founded News Vertical, The Cannabis, where he extensively covered the advent of adult-use cannabis and related issues across the country and around the world, as seen in the feature Netflix documentary, Rolling Papers. Ricardo is with me today to talk about his new project, Destigmatized. Welcome, Ricardo, to Cannabis Radio. Thank you so much for having me on there. It's mutual. Ricardo, I want to dive into the destigmatized series. But before we begin, I'd like to ask you to describe how you personally were introduced to cannabis. How and when did the plant enter your life? Yeah, you know, it's wild because it took cannabis and I a while to actually find where we could connect and find a meaningful meeting place. For a long time, I just didn't consume cannabis because it was primarily available only in smokable form. And in my life, my lungs have always been very sensitive to pretty much anything. And so I just assumed that this was not my substance because I could not consume it successfully until.
Early 2013, this came after Colorado and Washington both voted to legalize recreationally. And I had a buddy who saw that I was just passing the joint around the circle and not consuming, and he offered me an edible. And when I declined that, just because my previous experiences with edibles were all over the map. He kind of told me about the state regulated marketplace and told me that the state of Colorado's health department was kind of peeking into the consistency of these edibles. And they were more consistent, repeatable experiences than if your buddy was making some hot brownies. And so that really was my introduction to learning to understand and enjoy the cannabis plant. And that was pretty recently, early 2013.
Welcome to the culture. Your new series, Destigmatize, highlights cannabis consumers from all walks of life and examines how cannabis has impacted them directly with deeply personal stories. Why did you feel it important to address the societal stigma on cannabis and examine the lives of people who use it? Why this documentary series now? Well, you know, I think you and I both have seen the most powerful and sweeping changes in drug policy reform have absolutely been a result of people sharing their stories and being heard. And especially an absence of concrete data coming from clinical trials and double-blind, placebo-controlled studies. You know, we need these.
compelling, believable testimonials from people about how this is improving their lives. And we saw how quickly that transformed medical communities into adult use and deep south, deeply conservative communities across the country and world into medical communities, which then positioned them for greater growth. And so I certainly was a journalist back in the day watching some of these people testify in front of the Denver City Council or the Colorado State Legislature. And I would see tears in legislators' eyes from red districts as they started to learn how this... plant medicine can help people. And so I absolutely understand that reform happens when we share our stories because these shared stories are so compelling in so many cases. And so even so, we've made a lot of progress. Of course, anybody listening knows that there is so much more progress to be made. And I just, you know, our agency, Grasslands, we do public relations.
thought leadership and marketing for brand and cannabis and hemp and biotech and beyond. You know, since we are, of course, in a very social media centric era, we just thought it would be great to come up with some sort of a docu-series that would share these stories. And so we found the right partners. We invested a lot of time and money into this, especially personal business. And it's been one of the best things that we've ever done because, you know, sure, there is a light self-promotional aspect to these videos. They are produced and made and distributed by Grassland, by agency.
Most importantly, these are just sharing stories that needed to be shared. People in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s telling about how they use this plant, both medically and recreationally. And I think all of these stories are equally important, whether it's... One of my coworkers, Amanda Lowell, our PR manager, telling about how she uses it to relax at the end of a long day and it enhances her intake of Bravo television shows or the gentleman who consumes it to help with his COPD or the young woman who uses cannabis depositories to treat her dysmenorrhea or her extreme menstrual cramps.
I mean, all of these stories are important, and we just wanted to help people really tell them in the hopes that others hear them start to change their mind and maybe think about consuming cannabis or other substances for the things that they normally use prescription medicine for. I think the more we can get away from that, the better. And, of course, this is just about opening minds. I think that's so important because one of the ways that prohibition has been justified and marketed throughout the ages is through a deliberate process of dehumanizing the culture, labeling us, stoners, druggies, criminals. And so it's so important to highlight these stories of real people and their use of cannabis in the process of confronting and counteracting these almost totally false narratives. And in that vein.
De-stigmatized was launched on Veterans Day with an interview from Canna America CEO and Marine Corps veteran Dan Anglin. Why did you choose Veterans Day for the launch and decide to start the series with the story of a veteran? You know, the issue of veterans' rights to cannabis in this country right now, as you know, Vivian, is so broken. And it's very near and dear to our hearts because at our PR agency, we've repped a number of veteran-owned and veteran-led companies. My father, many other members of my family were veterans, and we have tremendous respect for them. So one part of it was the production cycle was coming up, and we were ready to debut this, and we looked at the calendar, and sure enough, Veterans Day was happening in the next couple weeks, and we targeted that with Dan's video. And Dan is a former client of ours, too. He's a dear friend to the Grasslands family. We helped him tell his story of being a Marine and now how he suffers as a Marine veteran, not only from access to the plants, but in so many other ways.
And we loved listening to him tell those stories on Fox News Channel or Cheddar or to now this. And so it was great to have him tell that story to us after we set him up with so many other opportunities to tell the story to him much. So I just think this is one of those things that we should have figured out years ago. And frankly, veterans lack of access to medical cannabis, lack of access through the VA system to prescribe cannabis. It is absolutely shameful. And we wanted to highlight that situation in hopes of maybe, you know, starting to change that conversation.
Yeah, my dad was a vet as well, and I just think it's so commendable because as we work for racial and gender equity in this new industry, the veterans really need to have a major role in that as well. Back to destigmatized here, while it can be viewed in other places, it's an Instagram TV docuseries with a dozen episodes of the project already live at the Grasslands Instagram page, which is at Grasslands Agency, all one word. You decide to present the series on Instagram as opposed to more traditional media. You know, it was more just as a trial balloon. Because we are media professionals, you know, I wrote for daily newspapers for 20 plus years. And, you know, within the organization, our content team alone has...
65 years of mainstream media experience. You know, our chief of staff was the managing editor at Men's Health. Our content director was the lead cannabis staff writer at the Chicago Sun-Times. And so, you know, we all have this mainstream. And I thought it might be fun to test this new medium of Instagram TV. And we know also from being entertainment junkies that, you know, this era that we're entering is legitimately a renaissance for entertainment and for content because you have, you know, Disney creating its own streaming profile.
Hulu and Netflix becoming bigger. And of course, Apple and Facebook now creating brand new streaming services that didn't exist a year ago. And so Instagram is, of course, a part of that conversation. And consumers of media are becoming more accustomed to actually seeing media, seeing recurring episodic television on the small screen on Instagram TV. So we just wanted to play with that as a format. And plus, of course, you know, hopefully it helps.
create more awareness of our general Instagram audience. But right now, this is airing every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. And it's been a lot of fun. And if I had it to do over again, I would absolutely do it the same way. Now we're just figuring out ways to kind of repurpose this content. And we have some larger films that will be a part of this as well. And it looks like we'll be debuting those with some certain media partners over the next three or four months. And so that's exciting too, because these stigmatized series, each episode is between 45 seconds and two and a half minutes.
And these longer form documentaries, which will involve multiple interviews, those will be more between seven and 15 minutes. So a little bit more traditional. And we'll debut in those in different channels as well. We are approaching our first break. But quickly, what do you most want viewers to take away from the project? I would just love for people to watch these with an open mind. Watch them with a mind toward the question cannabis.
Can cannabis help me or someone I love? And chances are that answer will be yes. And I'm not one of the advocates who will say that cannabis is for everyone because I think we've learned that it's not for everyone, but it is for a lot of people. And we know many of those people, even if we aren't those people. And that's what would make me so happy is if we could introduce some people to the plant who might be afraid of it because of past stigma. Right. You know, cannabis is not for everybody, but freedom of choice is.
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We're back to Hemp Presents, only on Cannabis Radio. Now, back to our headstrong hemperer of hemp, Vivian McPeak. And we're back with Ricardo Baca talking about destigmatized Instagram docu-series. Ricardo, destigmatized includes a young woman, as you mentioned, who uses cannabis suppositories to treat her dysmenorrhea or severe period cramps, as well as a woman who uses cannabis to treat the symptoms from chronic arthritis in her hips. It must be very fulfilling to be able to give a voice to ordinary or regularly who are using cannabis to courageously overcome the adversity in their lives. How has making the docuseries impacted you personally as a human being? On one front, and I would be curious if you feel the same way about this, Vivian, but on one front, I'm just kind of amazed that I could go through two straight days of filming, nonstop, back-to-back, having all of these folks through our offices to tell their stories.
And recognizing that even after those grueling days going through post-production, I cannot get enough of these stories. On the personal front, I'm learning that I cannot hear enough of the stories about how cannabis improves people's lives from the medical to the, you know, just letting loose at the end of the day. I am infinitely curious about the many ways people benefit from this plant. And every time I talk to somebody new about specifically that conversation, I always learn something I never heard before. And I find that to be so incredibly compelling. And also just...
Terrifically exciting, because to me, of course, this conversation is about cannabis and legalizing it and increasing access. But I've always believed, too, that cannabis is, of course, just the first domino. And this is allowing a conversation about greater progressive drug policy reform. And it's leading to conversations of psilocybin decriminalization in Denver and Northern California and many other communities and increased funding for psychedelic studies. And it's just so incredibly intoxicating in a way to hear people tell these stories, especially because this plant has undeniably transformed their lives.
Other plants are about to have their moments in the sun too, and it just makes me so proud to be a small part of these stories being heard out in the mainstream. I really resonate with what you just said, that it's amazing that cannabis has kind of opened up a dialogue where we're taking another look at just general drug policy and criminal justice issues in general, and also kind of a second look at our reliance on pharmaceutical drugs and the kind of cost-benefit analysis of how that's been playing out. I want you to know that I've watched several episodes of Destigmatized, and the people sharing their stories and experiences are, you know, I don't mean to minimize them all, but they're just normal, average, everyday Americans. They're mainstream Americans. Is one of the goals of the project to counteract the kind of nagging old 1960s cultural associations of stereotypes that have been exploited by prohibitionists that have been dogging the culture for decades?
Massively. And, you know, Vivian, going back to my introduction to the world of modern marijuana, which is 2013, getting the job of marijuana editor at the Denver Post, where I created that site you mentioned, The Cannabis, you know, my number one goal with that was wanting to spread quality information and wanting to not spread the misinformation that had been spread so long by the mainstream media, because I understand it. I mean, I went to J school and in journalism school, they teach you that there are certain sources that are unimpeachable. And among those unimpeachable sources. are oftentimes the government regulators who a journalist has to really rely on to trust them, to know that we are getting the truth because of their position in this regulatory body. And of course, the mainstream media was a big part of spreading the federal government and other governments' propaganda. And I wanted to break that cycle. And so now, as I've transitioned from being a journalist more into a member of this industry, certainly it was a big part of it to help prove wrong a lot of these theories that prohibitionists.
have been successfully spreading for more than 80 years. It's one of my goals in general in life is to spread good information and to quash out misinformation, whether it's pro or anti the plant. I just think misinformation is dangerous. And so that was a huge inspiration for doing this project. Yeah, I mean, you know, we are in the misinformation age, unfortunately, and the way we fight back is with the truth and with facts. What's been the reception to destigmatize so far? The reception has been really encouraging.
I'm not going to come out and say that we're breaking records on our Instagram channel, but it has been very, very encouraging from the perspective that it's getting seen. People are responding to it on social media, which we have a social media program at Grasslands and arguably the most important metric. on any of these channels is engagement. And of course, there's varying types of engagement. And this engagement for this series has been so encouraging. I've been very, very happy because people are commenting at something the subject says, you know, a minute and a half, two and a half minutes in. And if we know anything about the modern attention span, that's substantive. So I'm really thankful for that. And as I said earlier, I'm confident we're going to find ways to repurpose these stories.
and make them more shareable, make them more findable from a SEO perspective, which we're already in the process of doing, in the hopes that more people can actually see these stories, more people can learn from these brave individuals who are standing up and telling these stories in 2019, 2020. Do you feel like you're trailblazing by doing this mini documentary series and featuring it on Instagram, that you're kind of taking a cutting edge approach, which is a little bit out of the standard media playbook? You know, it's fun to try something different. But honestly, you know, people like you, Vivian, are the true trailblazers. And honestly, what you've done over the last 34 years and what people like you and Steve D'Angelo and the longtime Freedom Fighters have done, as well as your predecessors, have really positioned us in a place where we can actually get 40, 50 people to come on camera and tell these intensely personal stories. And that's just not possible without the immense amounts of work that you and your colleagues have done at HempFest and beyond. Well, thank you. That's, you know, I'm just, I'm so honored. And I've had the...
The amazing opportunity to work with our beautiful culture and movement with folks like you included. We're going to take a short break and hear a word from our sponsors and advertisers. Don't go anywhere. We're going to come back for the final segment. Time to roll out for the people that let us represent. Hang loose. We're coming right back.
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The cannabis industry is evolving at a radical pace, progressing toward the Green Peak. Each week, join Richard Zwicky, a cannabis visionary and entrepreneur, as he interviews experts from around the globe to discuss updates and evolutions in the world of cannabis. The Green Peak with Richard Zwicky. We're back to Hemp Presents, only on Cannabis Radio. Now, back to our headstrong emperor of hemp, Vivian McPeak. And we're back with our final questions for Ricardo Baca.
So Destigmatized runs on your Grasslands Instagram TV channel. Where else can folks check it out? You know, it also runs on the Grasslands Facebook page and the Grasslands LinkedIn page because we're just trying to maximize the exposure this first time around. And then they said we're going to spread it out further. And it's great seeing how the engagement differs because arguably we have a younger following on Insta and an older following, a more professional following on LinkedIn. And people get different things out of it on every channel.
And that's where we're at now. As I mentioned, we do have these three longer documentaries that'll be, you know, 10, 15 minutes a piece. And we already have one media outlet partner who helps, who wants to help us debut that. And that's been really, really exciting. So that'll be a world premiere with them.
We also have a film festival partner that wants to help us premiere one of the other ones. And so that's been exciting, too, just thinking about premiering one of our short documentaries, part of a shorts package at the Denver International or something like that. And so we're just trying to maximize people seeing it because we know the more people hear these stories, that's really where you change hearts and minds. And I think one thing, one dangerous pitfall, and I'd be curious your take on this too, Vivian, but I think that too many folks in the cannabis industry think this battle is over. They think this conversation is finished when really it's just begun. And seeing this sweeping reform happen in the last six years has been thrilling and exciting and necessary. But really, there's so much more ahead. And would you agree with that? We need to keep pushing and telling the story. You are singing my song, my brother. Yes, we have made amazing advancements, but cannabis is still federally legal and all this stuff could disappear in a heartbeat. It's not safe and secure, the advances that we've made. Ricardo, while we still have a few moments, is there anything that you'd like to add that you want our listeners to know about your project that we may have not covered yet?
Yeah, without question. You know, I think this entire project comes down to just a simple act of sharing. And so I would very much encourage folks to check it out. I mean, you can find it at at Grassland Agency on Instagram. You know, give a couple of them a watch. And if you see something, please share it because these people are sharing their stories with you. So maybe share that. And way more importantly, you know, we all have these important, compelling, almost.
you know, unexpected stories in our own life histories. And I can't express the power of sharing those stories enough, because as we've said, this is how you create change at city council and the state ledge, as well as in the U.S. Congress. But even if you're talking to your aunt, even if you're talking to your friend, making sure that they know and are familiar with the myriad ways that cannabis improves your life. These are important stories to share. So if nothing else, I hope that this conversation as well.
Instagram docuseries leaves people feeling more empowered to share their own personal stories because that is how we keep this conversation moving forward. We need to ramp it up. When you win a battle, you don't retreat, you advance because we haven't won the war. Our time is up, Ricardo. The documentary, the docuseries destigmatized documents America's ever-evolving relationship with cannabis. It runs three days a week on the Grasslands Instagram TV channel. Ricardo Baca, thank you so much for being on Hempresent, man.
Thank you, Vivian. It's an honor talking with you for the first time, and I look forward to meeting you hopefully next year. Okay, we'll see you at HempFest. Now I'm going to get to a weekly feature of HempPresent on CannabisRadio.com. That is the quote of the week, and here it is. Wise men speak because they have something to say. Fools because they have to say something. Those are the immortal words of Plato. That concludes this installment of HempPresent on Cannabis Radio. I want to thank Brasco, my man in the control room, and all the Cannabis Radio sponsors and advertisers. Join me next week for some more reefer repartee and cannabis confabulation with some special hemposapien on a journey to justice as we silence the violence, increase the peace, and promote unity in the cannabis community with impunity.
because when it comes to prohibition, you have the right not to remain silent. Activism requires a voice, so find your voice and speak up for justice, because resistance is fertile. Until then, my friends, stay strong, stand tall, toke it easy. The Hammers End theme song take back the plans performed by Stickerbush and sung by a much younger version of myself. Turn up the music, maestro, because I'm out. Marijuana! The opinions expressed on this CannabisRadio.com program are those of the guests and hosts, and do not necessarily reflect those of the staff and management of CannabisRadio.com. Any rebroadcast or redistribution without proper consent of CannabisRadio.com is prohibited.
Every single day you hesitate, your marketing budget is bleeding out on platforms actively sabotaging your pipeline. Vanishing organic reach, skyrocketing ad costs, sudden algorithmic shadow bans that wipe out your revenue overnight. If you're still pouring money into channels that throttle your business, you are throwing capital straight into an incinerator. WMR.FM gives you the unfair B2B advantage your competitors don't want you to have. Zero corporate red tape. Zero platform restrictions. When you lock in with us, we don't just drop you into one quiet slot. We deploy your message across our entire network, weaponizing every flagship show and 20 years of on-demand archives. That's instant, guaranteed, unrelenting exposure to millions of high-income founders. C-Suite Executives.
and enterprise buyers with deep pockets ready to spend today. Sponsorship slots across our top feeds are strictly capped and they move fast. Do not get locked out while your competitors take your market share. Email Brasco at WMR.FM. That's Brasco at WMR.FM. Secure your spot before it's gone.