Ep 38: The Cannabis Policy Queen & Cannabis Advocate. An interview w/ Aide Castro, Cannabis Regulations Consultant

Many have worked very hard to decriminalize Cannabis in California.  Aide Castro, is the former Mayor of Lynwood, CA (2010 / 2016) who fought hard to bring Cannabis to the Los Angeles area.   She is also a long time cannabis advocate and entrepreneur.  In this episode we interview Aide and dive deep into her experience with all things green. 

Connect with Aide:
https://www.instagram.com/castroaide/
https://www.aidecastro.com/about

Transcript

Ronjini Joshua: 0:11

Hello there we are back. So today we are interviewing Aide Castro. She's a former Councilwoman Lynwood and Mayor Pro Tem. Now she is a cannabis advocate, cannabis investor, a cannabis entrepreneur, if you will. So she kind of goes through her journey of cannabis. We talked about her time as a council woman. And we talked about her facing criminal charges for being caught with cannabis crossing the border from Mexico. and a bunch of other interesting, really interesting kind of caveats into creating a business in the cannabis space, especially in the LA market. So if you are a company that's in the LA market, you definitely want to listen to this episode with it and get some learnings on how you need to be active at the political level, at the community level. And then of course, have the business savvy to know what kinds of insurances and protections to get as you're opening a new business in cannabis. So hope you enjoy this episode. And here we go into the green room. Hello, and thank you for joining us in the green room today where we are interviewing Aide Castro. Hello, Ida. How are you? I'm doing great. Thank you for having me. Yeah, thank you. Um, so you are actually the former council woman and temp pro temp mayor of Lynwood also cannabis activist, advocate. And, you know, we would love to start with a little bit of background on like kind of what what you did before how you got into combat cannabis advocacy and where you are today. So let's get that started.

Aide Castro: 2:00

Wow. It's an interesting and unique story, which is why I really feel that it's by faith that I'm in this space. turn the clock back to when I was 21 years old. I used to work for the phone company and I developed the cyst in my hand right about here. It's still there. carpal tunnel and tendinitis. And my boyfriend now has been introduced me to cannabis for the first time, okay. And it really helped write long story short, I, a couple of things happen. I was a passenger in a vehicle that so happened to have cannabis in it, okay. And I was facing 10 years, okay. I got an opportunity of a lifetime just had to do probation, Scared Straight, basically, single moms, all of the above, I was not going to do that, again, ended up in politics, an opportunity of a lifetime to serve my community. And I did a lot. I got elected in 2007. And in around 2015, fast forward a lot of years in the cannabis industry, but let me go back a little bit to 2009. I actually had to vote on whether or not we would allow dispensaries in the city. Okay. And we had a, you know, legal opinions and and residents this outreach, oh, my God, there was a there's the legal dispensary in the city shut it down immediately. Now, mind you, I'm consuming. And I felt like the biggest, biggest hypocrite. And it was a unanimous vote to not allow it at the time. What we did was place a moratorium while it was studied more. And the concern was what were our repercussions with the federal government based on the fact that we were dealing with federal funding, and at that time, they would threaten to withhold funding and that type of stuff. So when the boat went down, as I as I was going and they came to me, for me to give my vote, I said, a hypocritical. Yes. That's what went into the record. So immediately, the reporter called me the next day, which is interesting because she's now the mayor, that same reporter is now the mayor. Oh, wow. And she says, Why did you say a hypocritical? Yes. And I tell them because I think we are a nation of hypocrites. We're okay with alcohol and we're okay with it. Masuda for drugs. But we have a problem with the plant. And then she said, Well, why did you vote that way? And they said, because at the end of the day, my responsibility is to my community as a whole. And right now, I don't know how my decision will affect the federal funding, which is very important to us right now. And that was the end of it. story wasn't too exciting, I guess it died. Sorry, fast forward 2015. I'm now working for Assemblymember Anthony runden, who's now the Speaker of the California State Assembly. Okay. And at that point, Mr. Reggie Jones Sawyer was working on a bill that was to combine the Murcia and Alma rules. And I kind of I guess, became the point person in the office, it was interesting to me being that I was a consumer, again, a secret consumer at the time. And, you know, I started looking into it, and then all of a sudden prop 64 came up. At that point, I knew that prop 64 made more sense than the bill that Assemblymember Reggie john Sawyer was working on. And all the focus kind of became on Prop 64. But as that was happening, I realized this is an economic opportunity for my city. And this is an opportunity for me to come out. And be honest about my consumption. And the reasons why. Now by this time, I had discovered a tumor on my thyroid. On October 4 2016, I had half my thyroid removed and the tumor. And all this was, as I was already working on an ordinance to make cannabis manufacturing, distribution, cultivation and delivery legal in the city of Lynwood. And whenever anyone wanted to attack me about my consumption up, you don't get to tell me what I get to heal myself with or relieve my pain from people will shut up, it was kind of hard to say something with a big old scar across my neck. And a couple of people did challenge me there was some attempts to recall me. And I did not care. And I would call people out. And I would say, you know what, yes, I smoke marijuana. But you're a drunk. Remember the other day we were taking shots. So it's kind of mean about it. This does mean that they were I kind of reciprocated the energy, but it was more of like, you know what, I'm not going to be ashamed. This is what I'm doing. At one point, I faced almost 10 years in life. I'm in the city, this is an economic opportunity. black and brown people have suffered the justice system, the prohibition of this plant, and we should have the right to now make money off of it legally. And people are going to like it, and people are not going to like it. I choose not to care at the moment. Yeah.

Ronjini Joshua: 8:13

I like how you say at the moment, because right? industry, everything is changing. So much different narratives are coming up all the time. Going back to just when you got into politics, so how did you actually get into politics overall? Because I mean, I don't know about your background, but what, what was the entry point into that?

Aide Castro: 8:34

So weird. So my cousin at the time that back in 1999, he decided to run for city council, okay, I had to volunteer, and then he lost. And then in 2001, again, he read. And again, I had to volunteer, you know how it is your proceeds and make phone banks and all that. It was out of obligation. And but this time he actually was. And he appointed me to my first commission, which was community block grants and development. And it's basically allocating funds to the nonprofit organizations and some of the departments live in city and this is basically federal funding and it's also used for housing for affordable housing, which at the time, being that I do have a background in real estate was was super exciting to me, I really, truly believe in everyone needs to own their home. While everybody's talking about you know, rent control. I'm thinking why are we teaching people about rent control? Why aren't we teaching them how to get into a home, how to become homeowners and really understand what generational wealth can be through homeownership and it started with that so I also have an affinity for affordable housing and I started working on that in the in the city. helping people understand how the first time homebuyers assistance program worked. And, you know, the city was kind of doing things backwards. They were approving a bunch of people for the loans. But most of those people were not actually qualifying for actual bank loan. So it was just causing a bad clause. Nobody was really benefiting from the program. And I was able to influence for that to change. And we were able to do amazing, I think, over 150 projects with Habitat for Humanity, which is also is an amazing program for getting people into home. So that's kind of where it started. I ended up in 2007, recalling four council members and one shot has never been done in the nation. One of those was my cousin. Oh

Ronjini Joshua: 10:53

my goodness.

Aide Castro: 10:56

I own my political career to him, may he rest in peace. He did passive kadaster but he wasn't behaving back then. And he had they had decided at that time, it was a total land banking scheme that they were going to build a football stadium in Lynwood, Lynwood is only 4.9 square miles. Yeah, it's not very big 100 homes to schools and like 200 businesses. And I understand real estate very well say you can't do that. Those are land banking scheme. And they're like they don't and I was like, No, I know you can't do this. Because before you can tear down a school, you have to rebuild it within 1000 feet. And I also wanted to do eminent domain, a bunch of homes to build a school so that you could tear this down for a stadium. I was like, Oh, no. And yeah, kind of became a big thing. And that's how I ended up on the Lynwood City Council.

Ronjini Joshua: 11:51

Got it? Okay, that's a very windy road. They're very dramatic has nothing to do. Very dramatic. That's so funny. So then when did you start? When did you start kind of advocating for it in with within the government and within, you know, the city of Lynwood and obviously county of La we immediately

Aide Castro: 12:13

as soon as I decided that I needed to do it in my city I started immediately I would say around the summer of 2015 because I yeah, I late summer and then I became more open and more aggressive in 2016 and it just kind of progressed from there this you know, it's funny because some of those same residents that were upset at me and signed a recall against me after talking to me I would give them product and in the Latino community a lot of people suffer of arthritis and a lot of aches and pains and we're used to seeing that bottle of alcohol with you know, marijuana in it in our homes, it was just never meant for consumption. So I started showing them how the industry was not just about a bunch of people you know, smoking and that smell that they were concerned about. I started giving them the bomb the oils and explaining to them the endocannabinoid system within us and how we activate our receptors and you know, people ask questions about THC, CBD, what's the difference? And I would always try to tell them, think about CBD as ibuprofen and take a think about THC and bike it and it does know how strong is your pain? Which one do you need? You know, and sometimes you need a combination of both men and little by little those same people, interestingly enough, now will call me and say, Hey, what do you recommend for this? Is this weird?

Ronjini Joshua: 13:56

Yeah. Well, I mean, I think that's one of the things that we've noticed with this podcast is that their lack of education is like a big factor in all the stigma that's built around it now in the city of Lynwood. How much did that impact your time in office? And just what you decided to do with your time, was that a majority of kind of your cause, or what were the other kind of issues that you dealt with around cannabis and obviously having dispensaries in the area and things like that.

Aide Castro: 14:25

So it didn't really do much for for my career, because one of the first things I focused on when I came into office was to establish term limits. I truly believe in term limits. I felt like a lot of the prior corruption going on in our city was due to not having term limits. I feel if our Congress and Senate had term limits, we wouldn't be dealing with a lot of the asinine politics that we're dealing with at the moment. So I I did not have a plan to be a career politician. When I came into losses. So it was kind of I gave myself that time limit, I ended up serving 13 years because we had one year added at the end when the state of California consolidated elections to coincide with the county and the state. So it made things a little bit more affordable for us. So for those reasons, it I it was never about, like, oh, let me make sure I get reelected type of thing. And my causes were very much based on affordable housing, that was a lot of my focus. A lot of my focus was also on infrastructure repair, it's, I am barely starting to see the fruits of our labors. The new council that came in is doing an amazing job, you know, actually bringing those projects to fruition so I'm very happy about that. The other thing that I was also very focused on was getting more green space to the community. So we were able to build a whole new brand new park, several pocket parks and just bringing in more active lifestyle type of activities. We took a strip along the 105 freeway that was just ugly and blighted and we made it into a trail Park and you know it has community gardens a little dog park so it's it's more about walk walking and ability active yeah little exercise stations every so often. Little markers of how much you've walked or jogged you know those little things. Then the other effort is on special needs it in, when I first got elected, coming off the Dyess, a couple of women approached me and said, Hey, you guys do all these things, to recognize, you know, different parts of the community. But you guys always leave the special needs community out. And it was just one of those like, yeah, you're right, what do you want me to do about it? And they were like, let at least have some type of like recognition luncheon and be inclusive of those. Yeah. And I was like, Okay, well, I at that time, we had a discretionary fund and I say, you know what, okay, let me see what I can do. We could use Bateman Hall, which was our community hall, I'll get a$2,000 budget and we will fundraise for the rest of it. And we declared the last Sunday of every February, special needs recognition and awareness day. And from that the school district kinda took it upon it and made it a bigger thing for two weeks to make young children aware and inclusive of the community. We brought sports programs that would be inclusive to the special needs. We included a physical therapy chair in our public pool that's free of charge for people who need that physical therapy aspect. And just again, kind of refocus our efforts of being inclusive. Now mind you that I got elected in 2007. Fast forward 2012 my twins are born. Fast forward to 2015 and they were diagnosed with autism. Okay, so I totally also feel that somehow or another working with all these special needs parents, I was being prepared, and thank God because I knew my girls, there was something wrong when they were nine months, the pediatrician thought I was crazy. I had to negotiate with him to send me to the developmental specialist, which he finally did at a year and a half, but they couldn't legally diagnose him until there were three. Last but not least, my other special project was bringing support and mentorship to teen parents. I was a teen mom, I had my first child two months before. Yep, two or two months before my 17th birthday. And I wanted to let other young parents know that, okay, you got pregnant, and now you have a child, all your dreams going you're on the backburner, but there's a way to balance setting you still have to take responsibility. And you know, these are the things that you need to do to get ahead on life. This is not an excuse to fail. This is not an excuse to say my life is over. I had to you know, receive Social Services. At one point, I did it, I took advantage of every word resource they gave me and look at where I am now. So you guys have no excuse. and Canada this was really towards the end. It was just one of those things of Prop 64 rights. I mean, I'm working for Mr. rendom and all the right places to make it happen.

Ronjini Joshua: 20:00

But yeah, well, how has that affected some of the other stuff that you've worked on? I it sounds like you are doing some more work in the cannabis space and you've had some investments in that area as well. Like how has your time with the city and then obviously, in government in general, affected how you were making decisions in the cannabis space and what you know, in that space?

Aide Castro: 20:24

I guess because a tourist, it was all towards the end of my career. And were part time elected officials were not full time, okay, we, we all have to have what we call real jobs. My pay was $975 a month, that was my stipend. And I received 250 for media allowance, and 250 for car allowance. So yeah, we have to have real jobs. It's very much a labor of love when you observe a small community. Yes, yes. Yeah. So it was already like natural for me not to be you know, we have a city manager, as a council, we give direction, it's up to the city manager to implement that policy. My job was to create policy. And if anything, everything I learned in politics, is what has allowed me to be successful now, because what this industry now needs more than ever, is an understanding of, you know, they're going from the traditional market to the now compliant market. They don't understand bureaucracy, they don't understand politics. And right now, they don't care. And right now, I feel like it's an opportunity for me to come in and help those who want to work with me to understand what it is that they need to do that tobacco and alcohol industry is not as powerful and influential as it is, because they don't get involved in politics, right? So hopefully, the cannabis industry gets it together and starts holding my fellow politicians accountable.

Ronjini Joshua: 21:56

Yeah. So what do you what do you see as the biggest challenges right now, for people to be addressing?

Aide Castro: 22:02

I think the biggest challenge is the over regulation and over taxation, I think that the legislature has really lost track of what the purpose of this is, and what a revenue maker it can be. If they were to streamline things I understand bureaucracy is important. I understand quality control is important. But they're overdoing it. I mean, people are looking by the time you go from seed to sale, you're like at 27%, taxation, and all that's being passed over to the customer. And then you wonder why the traditional market is still thriving is this is this ridiculous, and I just feel that the only way things are gonna change if if the cannabis industry stopped speaking, what like what I call with a trap mentality, you're not trapping anymore, get over it, your business personnel, you're not just a small business, you're trying to create a whole entity, you're trying to create brands, you're you're trying to be groundbreaking in this industry, you don't do that with a trap mentality thinking that, oh, let me keep all these secrets to myself. There is no secret. Once you go into the public world, guess what? All those slps that you think are special guests with their nonpublic information, the minute you file them with a city or, or a state entity. So I think the cannabis industry, it really, really, really needs to learn what politics is and start getting involved the right way that I think that's important. If not we're going to continue to ground the way we've been doing. It's it's, it's good for those people that have you know, that were able to save a lot of money and be ready. But even a lot of those people are struggling because you run out of cash. I mean, look at the people that applied in the city of Los Angeles. That would that everybody's still waiting. Yeah, yeah. I mean, just to get an invoice.

Ronjini Joshua: 24:09

As simple as that. That's a that's a good point. How do you Excuse me? How do you? How do you suggest that, you know, to avoid further penetration in the black market? Like, I think that's the problem. There's a lot of lack of education or like a lot of lack of bridges between the black market and the regular market, like what are the steps that need to be taken so that people don't feel like oh, I still have to do black market sales. Because it's also it's still like also contributing to that stigma, too, right. It's that there's so many issues that kind of revolve around that single thing. Yeah,

Aide Castro: 24:49

I mean, it is. It's a lot of variables included, but at the end of the day, the legislature needs to take a look at it from the state. perspective, they need to streamline it when they allowed it to be completely controlled at the local level. They they opened it up for a lot of improprieties to say the least. I mean, you're in. A lot of these cities are creating social equity programs requiring with 51% ownership. A lot of these build outs can be anywhere from five to $20 million. Yeah. So I'm the investor, I get to give that much money. And I got to get 51% control to someone who knows absolutely nothing about running a business that they know how to grow. Yeah, I mean, come on, people. Come on. It's that type of what I call dog and pony legislation that creates problems and sets people up for corruption, right? It's that simple. It should be treated like I get it. You know, most cities they can limit and say I only wanted this many. In Lynwood, we were strategic, it was new. So we said, okay, we want the brewery and the distillery just not the liquor store in every corner, right, I was being very politically strategic at the time, I knew I could push to my residents and for them to approve, allowing for cultivation, manufacturing and distribution, that if I said, Oh, a dispensary in the in your corner, all hell is gonna break loose. But everything else I could say blue collar jobs, you know, when labor peace agreements are the the field good quotes, right? And my hopes was like a, once I get this pass, hopefully my community will understand it was no big deal, they'll get over it. And then we'll do dispensary's. It hasn't happened. But I'm still praying that my colleagues will get their act together and make it happen one day. But at the end of the day, it's said, and I'm explaining this to you as a politician. Yeah, those are the games you have to play sometimes to create change. With me, I brought it to my city I created, you know, chaos, but I had prepared myself emotionally change versus ridiculed. Second, violently opposed, third accepted as self evident, they really killed the hell out of me. And they tried to recall me, when they couldn't recall me, they attacked me, I was on the front page of the LA Times all of the above. When that didn't work, and I still left with my head held high, they accepted it as self evident. I was part of change. And I'm very proud of that.

Ronjini Joshua: 27:33

No, that's, that's really amazing. I think that's a good note for people that want to get in the space to think of it is a challenging place to raise your voice. What is your recommendation for people who might be listening or brands that might be entering the market, that are going to have to think a little bit bigger than just, oh, I'm gonna go in here and try to open up a shop? Like, I mean, it's obviously much more complicated than that. What are the suggestions you can give to some of these dispensaries and brands that are getting into the space in the LA County? How they should get involved?

Aide Castro: 28:12

There's so many different ways. But more importantly, first, assess your value, and what skills do you bring to the table? Once you've identified that, figure out the Nexus into the industry, and I say, assess your skills, because you didn't have to be a grower or a manufacturer or a distributor, I'm sure you've been in some type of job that is very much needed in the industry. For example, human resources, these people need to understand labor laws, using trapping on more people, let me repeat that you ain't trapping no more, violate labor laws, make sure people take their breaks allowances, those types of things. And, you know, so if you have experience in HR, you need to, you know, you know, put your resume out there. And if you're a brand or a company and you're listening to this, do not, do not, do not skip out on your insurances and human resource and legal services, why you need workers comp, you have to, it's not an option. It's mandatory. Yes, it's mandatory. I'm sorry, get over it. That's just the reality, your property liability, you need that not just general liability, property liability, protect yourself with insurance at all times. Make sure you have a good HR person that's going to keep you compliant with labor laws. Most of the companies that are going down right now are going down because attorneys are targeting them because they know you guys are not keeping good records. You need to keep good records, your timesheets, make sure people are taking breaks from lunches. If not expect the class action lawsuit. It's called me with deaf people. Make sure you Have a good HR person, and legal legal services. Yeah. Oh, just thank you, you know, at the end of the day, we can all read, we can all interpret. But no, get yourself a professional. And understand not just one type of attorney, make sure that you're dealing with an attorney who can refer you to offer you different types of services, because you will need Labor Law Attorneys, Real Estate Attorneys, so many different things, not just one thing, and a lot of the people in the industry are using criminal attorneys. Criminal attorneys don't work when dealing with municipalities. We don't like them. If anything, they piss us off, and makes us not want to deal with you. Because they think they're going to come in and be aggressive and say, No, this is you're not defending anything. This is the policy, these are the rules, this is what you need to follow. So if if any advice, at least stick to those things, if you can afford those things, then you probably don't belong at the business at the moment. And what's probably best is that you figure out how you can collectively work with somebody who maybe does have a license, but doesn't have the expertise, and maybe put together some type of operational agreement. And that's where you can definitely bring value to the table, you might not have money, but you know, you have the know how and that has value put yourself out there. I call it the two foot rule. If you're within two foot from me, you're going to know exactly what I do, and how to get ahold of me, you have to market yourself at the end of the day. Think of yourself as the brand. What do you bring? Why, though? Why does anybody want to do business with you? The same way you would market your brand? Why does anybody want to buy your brand? Treat yourself the same way?

Ronjini Joshua: 31:52

Yeah, I know that these are great insights, I think one of the things that you touched on that I think is really critical to mention is just the cost, the amount, the cost of doing business in this space and understanding that cost. And like you said, as an investor, why are you going to invest in a company that you you have somebody that has 51% ownership? Who doesn't know what they're doing? So when and I and I've talked to a lot of people who are looking for investors and people that are looking to get started, what about their like, as an investor? What do you think are some of the kind of, I guess, tips of thinking of like how to how to collaborate, because I, I like that you mentioned like, you don't have to do this alone, maybe you can partner up with someone and create an operational agreement, like there's a lot of ways to navigate getting into the industry, you don't have to just, you know, it doesn't, if you go off solo, you're probably not going to fly. So what do you think are some tips on like, you know, finding those partners and being able to create a collaboration between other people.

Aide Castro: 32:58

There's, there's a lot of organizations out there that are looking to form those types of type of collectives, as much as they criticize LA, there are some social equity people that were smart enough, and were able to put those efforts together. And lumbee just creating a really good social equity program. Now, that also has someone within city hall kind of hand holding the individuals through the process. And already like the I believe it's like $440,000 in grant funding that they give them. That is true seed money. And if it's a little bit easier to come to an investor and say, Look, I'm going to, this is how much I bring to the table, this is going to get my plans approved, the city is going to approve my permits and everything, I just need you to fund the construction and you owe if you own the building, you know we create a partnership because you own the building, you're going to the tenant improvements are not just going to benefit me they're going to benefit you because now your building is worth a lot more. So there's ways of doing it. It's just I guess at the end of the day, we all just have to have a true understanding of what we bring to the table. Yeah, and what what are our strengths and what are our limitations and try to find other like minded people, but go to those cities that are offering those social equity programs, attend the workshops, talk to the what I call the movers and shakers of the area and but also be prepared to navigate a lot of bureaucracy in lumbees surprisingly it's not been bureaucratic. What I've seen has been very impressive to say the least I've been proud of them in this social equity aspect. Hopefully la gets their act together now they can't blame COVID anymore. They should we opened but they're still behind is not even funny, you know? And it's like they're purposely hurting the cannabis industry. And the political will is Not there to fix it, they're, you know, if they really wanted to enforce anything they would enforce on the what we already know are the non compliant dispensary's and be supportive of the ones that are paying their taxes. But unfortunately, that's not what's happening, you know. And then there's cities that want to be supportive of the cannabis industry, but simply don't have the manpower from within. And you know, you're building and safety departments also don't have a clear understanding of the cannabis industry. So a lot of new things that, you know, now the fire departments also become very bureaucratic. And you literally have to fight with municipalities to hold the fire department accountable. They're like, Oh, it's the fire department, we can do anything. You can say that to a regular person on the former elected, and let me tell you, you have a contractual agreement with them. And there's a timeline that they must follow. hold them accountable to that timeline, it can still take you six to nine months. But if you at least hold them accountable to that timeline, you have a better idea, or, hey, Fire Department, give us a checklist. So now finally, the fire department has provided checklists, at least in LA County. But I mean, they have not been shy about making it clear that they're purposely being non friendly to the cannabis industry. So that type of bureaucracy and bad policy making is what I feel is really hurting the industry here in the state of California.

Ronjini Joshua: 36:30

Yeah, know that. I think not just here. I've heard that in other states as well. I mean, all these little nooks and crannies, but I think questioning what what kind of resources you have is kind of the main way for people to get educated and make sure that they're doing the most that they can. What are you what are you doing right now in in cannabis. And you know, now that you are so happily retired, I'm sure from the city, but what are you what are you doing now?

Aide Castro: 36:59

So I've actually had a consulting firm since 2013. Started out with government affairs and campaign work. So after I finished the ordinance in the city of Lynwood, I went with weedmaps. And I basically they hired me to go into the different cities and help them create their ordinance in regards to cannabis. So I am proud to say that all the little cities around us in the southeast are replicas of my ordinance, I would say so far, Montebello has probably elevated it to its level is what I say. Don't tell my my colleagues I said, but honestly, but honestly might not alone, really enhanced it, they did a really good job with streamlining it, of course, we're never gonna be happy enough, we're always going to want more and more. But I feel like they did a really good job and did their best trying to be friendly to the industry, but still not to give the house away and create revenue for their city, which is important. So I did that for nine months with weed maps. And then from there, I kind of just took off on my own. I realized that I qualified as a social equity partner and the city of La went and found a, I guess, partner, investor partner, who was already well establish and we were able to get a license. And right now I actually does we're in the process of selling those to an LA because doing business in LA is not friendly. We've been waiting since last year but DCR won't process our invoice. So that's what's going on with that See, I suffer along with everyone else. And our focus has been in the city of commerce and Montebello, building out facilities and basically I solely focus on consulting for my business partners. I also serve as their general manager for their different facilities and also working on my personal brands. I have a as you know my name is Ivan but it's spelled AI d e and when most people see it, they see aid. So I am working on CBD aid. That's my name. And then the other product is in that's the CBD is going to be your your normal tincture, CBD non psychoactive product. Then we're focusing on blended cultures branded cultures is literally what you hear a blend of cultures of how we use cannabis differently. All our cultures somehow or another have some medicinal use with cannabis. And when you blended with the different herbs and different areas is just a way Wonderful products. My husband developed a really good formula. It's a bomb. He has he puts lavender and then of course the full blown cannabis because he wants it to have everything in it. Lemon Grass, I forgot that he puts in it. But it's an amazing, amazing bomb. It really numbs the pain immediately. And it's also great for scars. I will try to get close, but I don't have the scar you can barely see and

Ronjini Joshua: 40:33

yet Nope.

Aide Castro: 40:36

And I used a lot of it on there. I think all the natural, you know oils that he puts on it. But that's blended cultures and I grew up having an affinity for different cultures and just learning. It's a I'm not a religious person, but I have a lot of different Bibles because you have your Catholics and I've even been gifted a Quran. I love learning about different cultures. So that's where blended cultures kind of came from, okay. And there's candor collections, which was started by my business partner and an amazing female who's his business partner. We call her Trinity. So refriger is Trinity. and Canada collections is full, full flower cannabis, you know, there's vapes. There's flour, but if I refer to her as a her, it's a she she's, she's, she's, she's a businesswoman. She wears power suits, and she's a fabulous when I say Plexus pearls, you know, but she's, she's, she's me. She's Trinity. She, she's not that pothead that people have in my head. She's empowering. But she doesn't like a glass of wine. She wants a good. She wants to relax. And that's what category collections is, you know, so we'll go all the way working on

Ronjini Joshua: 42:13

Yeah, we'll put all the links in the show notes so that people can check it out and explore. Also the Instagram links if you guys have those. We'll add those in there as well. And then are you still consulting is what we used to have a lot of little toes dipped in a lot of different buckets.

Aide Castro: 42:29

I guess I am consultant but mainly specifically for my partner. He right now I've been focused a lot on his store. It's la Kush. We're at the before 70 Valley Boulevard in Los Angeles right off the 710 By the way, this is what I've been enjoying.

Ronjini Joshua: 42:47

Oh, nice. Oh, okay.

Aide Castro: 42:52

And, yeah, just kind of learning that part of the business. He's done a great job mentoring me. learning that side of the business. I bring the politics, the policies and other boring stuff, but he's teaching me the real you know, business of it. He's going to celebrate the teen years as a senior anniversary of being in business next year, May. I think I may 12, I believe of next year, he's celebrating 15 years in business, and Trinity has done some amazing work for them. If you're familiar with the no CEO, no deal, slogan in the cannabis industry, it's actually from Trinity. She was the one who started that. And it's kind of amazing to see that it got all the way to the state legislature where now it's part of the requirements of you know, having a field and making sure that it's labeled properly so that you know, you're getting clean meds. So a lot of my focus has been on that. I do have other clients that I consult for another amazing female owned business. Omnia, and that's owned by Claudia in great to be able to help another female in the industry and just kind of consult for her in her business. So I still do that. But right now more than anything I really want to focus on on developing my brands and doing this for me, I've done a lot for everybody else. I want to do it for myself. But I also want to focus more on the advocacy aspect and hopefully the industry is willing to use me to advocate on their behalf. It's not about making money for me when it comes to the lobbying. It's we need to do this we need to speak up for ourselves as an industry. We need to write this we need to make sure that the feel good dog and pony policy doesn't kill this industry. And the only way we can do that is by sharing resources communicating and changing the mentality.

Ronjini Joshua: 44:58

Yeah. Yeah, no, that's, that's amazing. Thank you so much for your work your hard work. And I think education yeah is definitely like one of the key components of why, you know, you're just mentioning at the very beginning that, you know, once you educated people, they kind of came around. So that's definitely still very, very important and, and being a champion is amazing. So we definitely appreciate everything that you're doing.

Aide Castro: 45:23

Thank you.

Ronjini Joshua: 45:24

Well, thank you so much for joining us today. Um, any any lasting comments, any lasting notes for anybody who's listening.

Aide Castro: 45:34

Wow. It's a beautiful plant, let's fight for it. Let's make sure that we get to enjoy it. And let's understand that at the moment, we're still being discriminated against. When you go out into public places. There's smoking sections, that as cannabis, consumers still feel like we can't hang out in that section. Why can't we be treated the same way? This This smells This is that is our stuff. And at least we can hide our stuff.

Ronjini Joshua: 46:06

Yeah, that's true. That's very true. I'm gonna I'm gonna have to agree with you on that one. definitely smells better than smoke. So,

Aide Castro: 46:14

right. So I mean, that's it. Just get involved people pay attention to who you're voting for, and hold them accountable to their promises. At least make them say it out loud. Make, make sure that you're asking the right questions. And, you know, yes, we all say we hate politics. Because politics is what runs the world. We have to get involved. policy is super important in every aspect of our life. And if you don't do something about it, and just sit and complain about it, we're just going to continue to struggle. Yeah, so let's speak up. And I'm more than happy to help you guys out and whatever I can to advocate on behalf of the industry.

Ronjini Joshua: 46:57

Awesome. Awesome. So we'll have all our ideas, information in the show notes. Click on those, you can always contact us if you need some more information from her. But thank you, thank you so much.

Aide Castro: 47:08

Thank you guys. You have a great day.

Ronjini Joshua: 47:10

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