27 Years In The Grow Industry: What Actually Changed

Elliott Gorfain started growing at 16, in a closet, under clamp-on fluorescents, with seeds out of a bag. The nearest garden center was 67 miles away and it stocked exactly one nutrient line. 27 years later he is Green Thumb Depot's head consultant.

This one is different. No sizing math, no spec sheets. James sits down with Elliott to walk the whole 27 years: the first two grows that failed, the DIY two-liter bottle hydro system he built off a magazine page, the harvest his mom kept alive while he was in Europe, and the golden age of Prop 215 California when the goal was quality and nobody was counting margins.

Then the part that matters if you are growing today. Elliott breaks down what actually changed: lighting from whatever you could find to metal halide and HPS to tunable LED, nutrient recipes that were guarded trade secrets giving way to published science, and the new problem that science created, which is data overload and not knowing what to trust. He is blunt about what survival looks like now that the black-market margin is gone. Attention to detail. Chasing rebates on lights, dehumidifiers and pumps, because the operation down the street is chasing them and will undercut you if you do not. Quality flower in a glutted market. And why chasing a single THC number is, in his words, ridiculous, when terpenes and the full profile drive both the effect and the shelf life.

If you have been in this a long time, this is the conversation you have been having with yourself. If you are new, this is the shortcut.

In this episode:
- Where a 27-year career actually starts: one closet, one nutrient line, 67 miles away
- Why both of his first attempts failed, and why nobody's first grow works
- The DIY two-liter bottle hydro system, and its one design flaw
- How lighting evolved from metal halide and HPS to tunable LED spectra
- Why nutrient recipes went from guarded secrets to published science
- The data overload problem that came with all that science
- The research that did not exist 27 years ago: UV augmentation, the Emerson effect, deep red and far-red
- What survival takes now that the margin safety net is gone
- Why 1% more yield and a rebate you missed decide who stays in business
- Why potency alone is the wrong target, and what terpenes and the entourage effect actually do
- Where the industry goes next, and why the science is the trend worth chasing

Need help with any of it? Green Thumb Depot can help you spec lights, dehumidification, nutrients, and anything else your room needs, and we will help you find the rebates too.

Shop and get a quote: https://greenthumbdepot.com

Subscribe for more commercial growing breakdowns with James and Elliott. New episodes every week.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey guys, this video is for educational purposes only. Please do not break the law. Alright, welcome back to another episode of the Growers MBA podcast. I'm back here with Elliot, our head consultant over at Green Thumbdepot.com. Today I wanted to kind of change it up, keep it a bit more casual, keep a bit more interesting, and learn a little bit more about you, Elliot. I mean, you're our head consultant, you've been in the industry for 27 years now, CEA, expert. You've got quite an in-depth scientific background. And, you know, I kind of want to just learn more about your journey in the space and you know what wisdom you've imparted, what wisdom you've learned over these 27 years of experience you've been in the space. So I guess just to start off with, you know, how did you get into this exciting space?

SPEAKER_01 0:44

All right. Well, I'm gonna be dating myself here on this episode, but that's all right. So I actually first started cultivating cannabis when I was, I guess, about 16. I was in high school. Just found the plant, loved it. And you know, back then, everything that you ever got had seeds in it, so it was easy to throw them into the ground and see what happened. So I think the first time I grew, I actually just took some seeds out of a bag and threw them in some pots and some soil in my closet and like hung up some fluorescent lights, you know, because there was no, at least where I was at in SoCal and Temecula and urban Temecula, suburban Temecula, there was no hydroponic stores. So I actually had to drive, I remember it was 67 miles from Temecula down to this place in San Diego as a garden center, just to get GH three part. And that's all, that's all they had, you know. That's all anyone had. It was just GH three part. They in fact, they didn't even like they would buy it in like five-gallon barrels or or jugs, maybe even 55-gallon drums, and they would aliquot it out into individual gallons. So, like once in a while you get like a gallon of the grow, and it would have some green, you know, some algae growing in there, and it was like, come on, guys, you know, like what are you guys doing to me? But we couldn't complain because that was the only game in town. So yeah, it was a long time ago.

SPEAKER_00 2:09

And what do you think? I mean, that's kind of crazy to hear that you started growing when you were 16. Because I know when I was 16, you know, I would you know message some random dude from my high school and meet him in a back alley and you know, buy like a gram of weed off him for like 20 bucks. But the thought never even remotely came to mind that hey, maybe I should try growing this. So, what do you think like kind of brought you in? Like, what made you so interested? Because I can tell you that's the last thing I thought about as a 16-year-old kid.

SPEAKER_01 2:36

Oh wow. Well, two things really. First of all, allegedly, I was that guy that you would be calling to get that bag. So I there was that motivation, you know, it was profit. I I I was a businessman even at the tender age of 16. And the other thing is, I just I've always liked to to to grow plants, I've always been around it. You know, when we were young, my mom, my family, we didn't have a whole lot of money. So she actually did a lot of community gardening. And we lived in the Lakewood Long Beach area, and she had like a community garden in every city that was within like five, 10 miles, because you could get one free, like with every city. So we would go around, she would take us around. Me and my brothers take us around to the different gardens, and we would just play in the dirt while she was, you know, harvesting the Brussels sprouts and and uh broccoli and stuff like that. So always, you know, from since I was I can remember, always been around plants and gardening, and I I owe that to my mom for sure.

SPEAKER_00 3:33

Well, that that's a pretty interesting upbringing and pretty unique, actually, to be surrounded by plants at such a young age. So, how did you learn how to how to do this? Like, you know, back then I don't imagine there was a ton of resources available on how to do this stuff, and like what type of system did you use to grow?

SPEAKER_01 3:49

Well, so that first time I grew that I put the the seeds in the in the soil in the closet. Actually, my mom found it, right? Classic story, and you know, she didn't know what to do, so she called her sister, and her sister's like, Well, you gotta yank those plants. So my mom yanked them, and they hadn't even started flowering it, they're in a veg, all right? So she yanks them, and then her sister, my aunt, tells her, Yeah, do you want to give those to me? I'll make good use of them. So my mom yanked my plants and gave them to her sister, but whatever. Water under the bridge. So that did not that did not work out to a harvest. And I tried planting some seeds outside in the hills, and they got eaten by the, you know, by the animals and whatnot. But the first harvest I ever got, my brother and I, we had ordered some seeds from Amsterdam. My brother did, and when we got the seeds, we some people who are old enough might remember this, but there was a magazine called High Times, I think they're still around, and they had published like a DIY hydro system you could make by taking two-liter soda bottles, chopping the bottom off and flipping them upside down, and then screwing them into PVC. And it was essentially like a bucket system, you know, you'd have a reservoir and then the pump would pump it up into these two-liter bottles upside down. And it was actually a great system. I mean, it's huge root masses on these plants, you know. It was just beautiful, the whole two-liter filled up with white roots. It was great. You could see the roots, which wasn't great because the light was hitting them, they were turning green at times, but but still, still a nice system. And we grew Shiva skunk and Big Bud from some place in Amsterdam. I can't remember, I think it might have been Bluebird. But anyway, and this is the best part of the story. So this was right before I graduated high school, allegedly. And we, my brother and I traveled to Europe after I graduated high school, and we were like at week four when we left. So, week four through or five through eight, basically, I was in Europe. My brother and I were in Europe, and we told my mom by this time she'd come around and she was actually okay with it. And we said, Hey mom, can you just top off the reservoir? Like, you really don't need to do anything else, right? We'll see how it works. So she topped off the reservoir for four weeks during the most critical part of flowering, and this system was so janky, the lights, it was like fluorescent. There's some like clamp-on lights with some, I don't remember the bulbs or or lamps that were in there, but it it was it was crazy. And we came back, and it was the most beautiful harvest. Huge kolos from the big bud. So Shiva Skunk was just white with crystals, like everything was perfect. Everything honestly was absolutely perfect. I couldn't believe it. I looked at my mom, like, what did you do? Like she's like, I just did what you asked, you know. And so the first harvest that that I ever successfully brought down was was with it was a family effort. It's my brother and and a lot of help from my mom. So and then that lasted me probably about halfway through my first year of college. Yeah, so that's cool.

SPEAKER_00 6:58

Okay, so hold on, I'm a little bit confused. So at first, your mom gave your plant to your aunt and threw it out. Uh what happened? What did I miss in between there? Where some she went from throwing your plant out to actually helping you grow these dank buds.

SPEAKER_01 7:12

Well, I guess you could just say I'm I can be pretty convincing at times. You know, uh, I think in the in the year or so in between the two events, you know, I and I mean I always got great grades, I got straight A's, I got into college and everything. So I think maybe she was less concerned about you know, about that, you know, about how you know smoking cannabis can affect you know your your your grades and your your motivation and drive and whatnot. So I guess she was just okay with it. And she may or may not have actually partaken herself at times. Sorry, mom.

SPEAKER_00 7:49

Wow, go mom. That's a that's a pretty awesome story. So go mom. Yeah, W mom out there. So we you know, going back to learning how to do this in high times and a random magazine and kind of putting together this junk janky situation. Now in 2026, we're kind of like where the technology has advanced like so profusely, like you know what how have you seen things change from way back then all the way to now? You know, it's in some ways, I'm sure there are some similarities, but in some ways, obviously, you know, you've got giant grow grow rooms, commercial size rooms that are the size of football fields, you know. Like how what else have you seen change?

SPEAKER_01 8:31

Oh man, honestly, like almost everything has changed. Here in California, there was some legislation that was passed, Prop 215, that that kind of ushered in a golden age in California because it it legalized the plant, but it put very few regulations on it. So, you know, we were growing homegrow and selling, you know, a decent sized grow, but not not not a huge commercial, you know. But we were we were making the best quality herb that that you could possibly get. The the focus wasn't really to make money, it was just like what is the best that we can do. And uh back in those days, like we were slinging packs, pounds for you know five thousand dollars a pound. I'd go into the dispensary and uh you know these guys would be like, How much more do you have at home? You know, they just they could they couldn't get enough of it. And nowadays it's not not quite as expensive. You you can you can you can't sell your packs for that, even if they're high quality. So what's changed? I mean, you know, the nice thing is with legalization, various different types of legalization, state by state, that's happened. The good thing is that we have less people going to jail for it. You know, we have less people that that you know their lives are just completely ruined because of this, which I I'm personally very thankful for that. On the flip side, we're making a lot less money, you know, the margins are are compressed, and you know, a lot of big businesses have gotten into it and are kind of taking over. So there's some folks that really have from day one been against legalization in any form because of what it's done to the prices. But you know, it's it's a balance, right? So the higher the risk on the black market, the more you can command on the price. Once things become legal, then it just becomes a commodity, the margins get compressed, but hey, people aren't going to jail. So, you know, there's there's it's a double-edged sword, and and there is a lot of deeply, you know, deep emotions that people feel about this when the subject comes up. So I just want to be clear that I understand both sides, and there's pluses and minuses. I'm not advocating one or the other, but that's kind of the legal aspect, you know, from a technology aspect, a lot has changed as well. You know, we went from in my neck of the woods not having any grow, you know, hydro stores to having now like at the peak in LA, like there's like three hydro stores on every block in certain areas, you know, it's it's kind of ridiculous. And everyone is growing weed, there's a lot of trap grows, and then you know, with more and more legalization, now it's gotten to the point where a lot of those are are going away, and you're just having these huge, centralized, licensed, you know, commercial facilities that are, you know, maybe run by people who unfortunately spent years fighting legalization and putting people in jail. I mean, you know, so it's it's a bit bittersweet, but but the technology that has come out of that is is pretty cool. You know, we've gone from using whatever lights you could find to you know, HPS and and and and metal halides to LEDs. There was some CMHs there briefly, most people aren't using those now. But almost everybody, I wouldn't say almost everybody, but the majority of folks are using LEDs now, which are safer. You can tune the spectra, you can, you know, there's all this research that's being done now. Well, we we never we never had any of that available, you know. Like we just had to do our own research. We had to guess, we had to talk to one another and read books. And yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:00

So, how do how do you think that's affected kind of like the culture since you saw since you started at the very beginning? You know, I've talked to quite a few people who are like, what back in the day, man, it was like the Wild West, you know, things were crazy. Like, obviously, you know, it's a lot more cutthroat nowadays, a lot more scientific, probably a lot more professional, you know, a lot of people in suits are involved now, you know. So, you know, how have you seen the culture in general change with inside the cannabis industry?

SPEAKER_01 12:26

Yeah, I mean, you know, the there's kind of the obvious thing where it's it's gone from you know, folks that were dedicating their lives to the plant and really believed in it, entrepreneurial spirit. It's gone to this corporate sort of thing in a lot of situations now, depending on where you're at in the country. And and that's that's kind of sad. I mean, I I I really do appreciate that that that other culture that is kind of slowly going away. There are people that came from that culture that are now being, you know, fulfilling that professional role themselves, and I I love to see that. But on the other hand, there are there are positives to it too. You know, back in the day when when when I was growing a lot, you know, you everybody would develop their own recipes for nutrients, for example. And it's just a closely guarded secret. Like you never gave your recipe to the other guy because it was something that you worked on, you know, your whole life. It was your your trade secret, right? And Lord knows I would never tell anyone. I still I still don't tell people my recipe because you know it's uh it's a great recipe. And you know, I like to keep it secret. But but the truth of it is nowadays there's so much, there's a lot more published literature, there's scientific studies being done on cannabis, there's all this science that the the equipment manufacturers are doing, the nutrient manufacturers are doing, actual controlled experiments. So there's a lot more published knowledge, so it's less, it's less mystical in a way, in some ways, but you know, like a lot of things nowadays, there's so much data that it can be data overload, and it's hard to know what to trust, you know, what's legit, what what is just hype, you know, what what's just spin. And so it the the truth is out there, as they say, but it it does still take a discerning eye to understand what really matters. But I mean, I love it. Like what people are doing now with you know, UV augmentation with the Emerson effect and and deep red and far red spectra. I mean, we never had any clue about this when I was young. You know, it was like, you know, use a metal halide for veg and use an HPS for flour, you know. That was that was the golden rule right there. That was about as close to spectrum tuning as we got. So there's a you know, like a lot of things in life, there's there's pluses, there's minuses, and you got to just take the good and roll with the bad and make make what you can of it.

SPEAKER_00 14:46

Yeah, the recipe thing reminds me of if you've ever seen Breaking Bad, Jesse Pinkman, like when he first started cooking Beth on his own, he's like, Yeah, man, I put chili chili flakes in it. It's my rest, it's my my signature move. It just kind of just kind of reminds me of probably back then there was a lot of people who had their own recipe that probably wasn't even actually all that good, but you know, they they protected it with their life, you know. So absolutely, yeah. So so I wanted to ask you kind of so you've seen a lot of those people who you know were super the cowboys back in the day, and you said some of them are still around today, and that's really cool, but you know, I mean, what do you think it takes to survive these days? Like what what's the like main trait to survive in this industry? Because it is quite cutthroat. You said yourself, margins have completely disappeared. It's not an easy industry to get into for sure, you know. So, my main question is what does it take to survive in this cutthroat industry today? Like, what makes you stand out?

SPEAKER_01 15:42

Yeah, well, you know, there's a lot of things, it's not just one thing for sure. You know, attention to detail. Let's face it, this is a uh the margins are tight in this industry right now. And you you can't just be a good grower. You've got to be a good businessman. You've got to, you know, anytime you buy equipment, you gotta get the best price. If you're buying lights or DHUs or pumps, you gotta check for rebates, right? Because if you're not doing this type of stuff, the guy down the street is, and he's gonna have lower cost and he's gonna be able to undercut you, and you're you're gonna go out of business, you know. And so, you know, that that huge margin that we were able to play with before because it was a black market industry, it's just not there anymore. And that was a safety net. And you could get away with a lot of a lot of stupid stuff. Lord knows I've done stupid stuff, you know, when I was growing, but but you just can't do that nowadays. So it's it's attention to detail. If you get one percent more yield, you know, you you save a a point, you save a two a point or two on the equipment. I mean, this is what makes or breaks people. In addition to all that, though, you know, you have to grow the highest quality herb that you can, and unless unless you're processing it. So there's there's a tremendous amount of processing. So we're talking edibles and concentrates and stuff. Now, they can get away with a bit lower quality on that side because who knows what the flour looks like by the time you got a you know a pen, right? But if you're selling flour, like you have got to have the highest quality flour that that you can produce because what's happening is there's a glut of supply, there's too much on the market, and if yours isn't moving, you might even be able to get it into a dispensary, but if it's not moving because it doesn't look good and it just sits there, shelf life is limited, and and you know, the dispo is not going to reorder. And so you've you've got to have the and it and it's not just about THC anymore. For a while, people are just like, Oh, I just want the highest THC, which is ridiculous, but but that's what it was. Now people are waking up and they're like, no, you know, the entourage effect, terpenes, like we need the flavor. It's not just for the flavor, it's for the effect as well. And and also if you have all those terpenes and you then you're also gonna typically have a longer shelf life as well. The two are kind of related. So, you know, you basically you have to have your game together on all fronts, you know, you really do. And I guess the the last thing would just be you got to have the heart for it. Like you have to really, really love this industry. You have to love growing plants, you have to love being an entrepreneur, you have to love crunching numbers. If you if you don't love all of that or have a team that you can, you know, partition it out and and whoever's doing what, they love what they do. You know, like like a lot of industries, if you don't love what you do, you're you're fighting an uphill battle.

SPEAKER_00 18:32

So, yeah, I mean, just like in football, it seems like it's just a game of inches. You know, if you can get one percent, like a one percent advantage over and over and over again, you know, just hammering those tiny little advantages every opportunity you get. Seems like that's that's really what it comes down to. But it it like I said, it does seem quite cutthroat. It's not an easy industry to be in. Because not only do you need to to win every inch, but you've got to make sure your bud is is a very high quality bud. And by the way, you know, it's just really lucky for everybody listening to this episode that you guys can reach out to us anytime to get the best pricing on literally any piece of equipment. So just gonna throw that out there again. Talk to me or Elliot, and we can get you the absolute best pricing on DHUs lights, whatever you need. If you guys need help with rebates, we can also help there as well.

SPEAKER_01 19:17

I'll add that, you know, we're also here to help you grow the finest herb that you can. I mean, that's that's my role personally here is to help you work through all that. So while I might not give you my personal secret sauce recipe, I will help you develop your own. I will help you understand all these different things. We as a as a team are are are here to do it and could be happier to do it.

SPEAKER_00 19:39

And so I just wanted to finalize this off or finish this off really quickly. You know, there's has been a lot of changes in the industry. That's kind of been the theme of this episode. And one of the big things that have obviously happened recently is Trump, whether you love him or you hate him, he's rescheduled the he's rescheduled cannabis. And that has happened. That is a fact. It is rescheduled, right? Or so I know it's quite political. There's a lot of takes on it. I know it's a very heated debate. Is this a good thing? Is this a bad thing? A lot of people think that this opens up the road to like this now it's just gonna be pharmaceutical companies that are involved and it's gonna cut out a lot of the small people. You know, other people think that this is really good, it's less regulation on us, less more access potentially to banking, we're heading in the right direction. You know, I think there's there's pluses and minuses on both sides, but you know, what are your thoughts on it?

SPEAKER_01 20:27

Yeah, I mean, you pretty much summed it up right there. I mean, honestly, it's kind of it's not unlike what happened with Prop 64 in California, where it just, you know, it it opened it up, you know, and sp well I'll specifically talk about rescheduling. I mean, by rescheduling it, it does open it up for medical research and and whatnot. And again, you know, on one hand, like you said, it opens it up to the pharma companies. You know, they spent billions, if if not more, over the years keeping the plant illegal, putting people in jail essentially by because they were afraid of the medicinal qualities of the plant. And now they're gonna come in because they have all the money and take over the industry. I mean, that's probably gonna happen to some extent, and that's unfortunate. I don't like that any more than you know, the next guy in this industry. On on the other hand, you know, there is legitimate medical value for the plant, and it's good to see that it's being accepted now as that. And I think, you know, we kind of just need to roll with it. You know, it we're not able to change what is, but we can we can understand how it affects us. The one thing I will say about the medical aspect. So we actually, my mom got a uh squamous cell carcinoma tumor on her arm a while back, and we treated it with a one to one ratio of THC to CBD and RSO, and it killed the cancer. It you know, over the course of six weeks, turned black, fell off, healed up, did a final biopsy, no cancer remaining. Pretty amazing. And I talked to a lot of people about that. I'm I'm not a doctor, by the way, this is not. Medical advice, but don't sue me, bro. But it it it does work in a in a lot of the cases, and it's it's uh a beautiful thing that it does, and we are able to understand the molecular biology of it now. So, as you know, James, I came from the biotech industry and I used to work in a cancer research lab degree in molecular biology, and what's what's disappointing is when we talked to my mom's doctors, they didn't know anything about the molecular biology of cancer, they didn't know anything about cannabis and how it interacts with cancer and and and stimulates the body's own immune system to attack the cancer. And now with rescheduling, it's gonna be more accepted. But the interesting thing, my prediction is that you're gonna have the pharma companies come in and they're gonna do all this research, and then what they do to get it through the FDA is create a single molecule drug in a pill form, typically, and that's how they get it through the FDA. It's a complicated process, and and you know, I won't get into why it's set up that way and whatnot. But the end result is there's going to be cannabis extract, single molecules that are eventually just going to be synthesized, not even produced by the plant and sold as cannabis-based medication as a single molecule. And then hopefully there will still be the medical side of cannabis itself, the plant. You know, you could go out and get flour or extracts from cannabis. But the irony is that those folks that are still using the plant-based medicine are going to be in a way better position than the people that opt for the pill that's potentially paid for by the you know the health insurance companies and whatnot. And the the main reasoning is that cannabis is a very complex plant and the active ingredients you you can point to THC and CBD, CBG, you know, and whatnot, but really it's not about any individual molecule, it's about how all of these molecules work together. So I've talked to a lot of uh people that are fighting cancer, and some of them they have this attitude like, I don't wanna, you know, I don't want to use cannabis because I don't do drugs, you know, and meanwhile they're they're on chemo, you know, and I'm like, well, you're doing drugs, and those drugs are actually designed to basically bring you to the edge of death, and then they they bring you back. Where you know, this plant that has molecules in it that you're considering drugs, it's never killed anybody, not unless you know you dropped a you know, 100-pound bail on somebody's head or something like that. But the molecules themselves are very safe, and especially when in a a whole plant form, you know, full spectrum extract or or you know, vaping or smoking the the whole plant itself. So there's gonna be a lot of changes, and you know, again, you know, there's some good and there's some bad. You know, none of us except the present really have a say in in this rescheduling, so we just gotta accept what it is, you know, vote, but accept what it is and make the most out of it. And me personally, I I think in the long run, it's it's a good thing to free the plant and to get it into people's hands that really need it and to reduce the stigma associated with it. Because even to this day, I mean, all the literature's out there, if you check in, you know, PubMed, you can see all the literature talking about how cannabis kills cancer. But every day I talk to people about it, and every day, every single time, with few exceptions, people are like, really? I had no idea. You know, it's it's kind of weird that there's this like cure to cancer that is right under our noses, so to speak, and most people don't even know about it. A lot of people that smoke cannabis don't even know about it.

SPEAKER_00 25:36

Yeah, I mean, I didn't even know about it, to be honest. So I'll always always learn something from you, Elliot. But yeah, I mean, it's super fascinating to see where everything's going, you know. It's super fascinating to see where everything's going. I, you know, I do pay quite a bit of attention to a lot of the bio biotech companies out there, and you know, a lot of these chemicals, these kind of like very healing chemicals, psilocybin as well, you know, they're getting really broken down into like the healing part of it, right? And you know, it's our you know, you can argue whether or not that's actually still gonna be helpful or not, you know, but it's pretty interesting to see how it's all working, you know. And uh even like you know, you mentioned people that don't want to ever try drugs. You got that Rick Perry out of out of Texas, you know, he's conservative politician, this whole life super Christian guy, and now he's pushing Ibogaine to as a as a cure, not cure, but like as a you know, it helps soldiers with PTST, you know. So it's it's interesting to see how open-minded some people can be, you know, when it comes down to it. So last question I have, yeah. Last question I have here is just, you know, for everyone listening, you know, it's they might get a little bit nervous here. They might think, shoot, maybe I should not get into this industry. Sounds really hard to get into the space. You know, do you think the cannabis industry as we know it today will still be around in the next 10 years? It's a tough question.

SPEAKER_01 26:55

Oh yeah, it it'll be around. You know, I mean, alcohol is still around, right? And and alcohol, you know, causes a whole list of problems. And, you know, if even if you're not even considering the medicinal aspect, just recreationally, I've always I've always preferred their, you know, I mean, I remember the first time I I actually got high. I was outside my mom's house where she's still living, where I was growing the plants in the closet. And I just remember the first thought that came to my mind was, why would anyone drink alcohol? Because I could, I could continue to, I felt great, but I could continue to have an intellectual conversation. So I think, you know, cannabis has been around for, I think there's documented use of cannabis with in humans like 35,000 years ago, I think. So I it's been around for a long time. I don't think it's going anywhere. It is changing. So the business is changing. So the important thing is just stay on top of the trends, you know, and I don't mean the trends like the trendy trends, but I mean like the science, right? The you know, when when people like now, people are are really talking about the Emerson effect a lot with the with the deep red and the far red. Like learn it, understand it, incorporate it, you know, get that UV in. If you're not using these techniques, again, you're gonna fall fall by the wayside because other people are. So you got to stay on top of the science, stay on top of the equipment, build a good team. That is the most important thing. If you because there's no way you're gonna be able to do everything yourself, the people you have on your team are critical. And there are people that have been doing this for years that know so much about what they're doing. Get these people on your team, um, build a cohesive team, a team that works together, plays together, you know, enjoys. It's really critical. But absolutely the industry is gonna be around. And um, you know, if you're new to it and you're and you're thinking, like, should I get into this or not? Give us a call.

SPEAKER_00 28:55

Well, Elliot, I mean, that's as always. I appreciate listening to you, hearing everything you have to say, and just comment on on all of that. You know, um, we can help you guys with anything you need. I mean, we're here to help you optimize. We've helped countless grows get started from the very beginning, and now they have full fledged businesses. So they're thriving. So if you work with Green Thumb Depot, you're gonna thrive. Let's just put it like that. So I'll leave it at that. As always, Elliot, I really appreciate the conversation, and we'll be back next week for another episode.

SPEAKER_01 29:25

Thanks, James. Looking forward to it. Take care.