Happy 420: The History, The Industry & The Healing

Happy 420! In this special holiday episode of "It Begins Here," host Jillian Johnson celebrates the official cannabis holiday by sharing her personal relationship with plant medicine, her professional perspective as a financial expert serving the cannabis industry, and the hard truths about running a cannabis business.

Jillian gets vulnerable about her 3:34 AM ritual: consuming a 5mg live rosin sativa edible as part of her yoga flow, kitchen dancing, and meditation. She explains why her 10-year-old daughter knows it's "mommy's medicine" and how the endocannabinoid system proves our bodies are literally built for this plant.

But this episode is also a masterclass in cannabis entrepreneurship. With 26 years of financial experience and a bookkeeping firm (Simply J) serving 55% cannabis clients, Jillian breaks down the three biggest challenges operators face: predatory debt/equity agreements, massive accounts receivable issues, and lack of business acumen. She warns about payment processors like Blaze that have left operators high and dry, and calls out proposed Massachusetts ballot measures that could destroy the recreational market.

Whether you're a consumer, an operator, or just curious, this episode offers education, empowerment, and a whole lot of love for the plant. Your journey to understanding cannabis as medicine and business begins here.

 Where love creates movement, and movement creates change. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I consume cannabis. My my 10-year-old daughter knows she knows it's mommy's medicine. And when do I consume it? 3:34 in the morning. That's right. It's part of my yoga flow. It's part of my kitchen dancing. It's part of my meditation. I don't have to use it, but I do love it. It is a necessity for me when I'm trying to be my best self. Sometimes you need it. Sometimes you have to do the things, you know. And others consume as a collective, you know, it's a social aspect. Um, I also consume when I'm in creative mode. It allows for creativity to flow. I mean, you don't you don't necessarily need it. I do it without it too, but it is a beautiful thing. And oh by the way, we have an endocannabinoid system that kind of simulates with it. So it's just wild. So if you don't know about the endocannabinoid system, please look that up. Well Dia, and welcome to It Begins Here. It Begins Here is a podcast about my journey and path to enlightenment, healing, awareness, realizations, and all the fun little stories in between. So I welcome you to It Begins Here, a podcast. Um happy 420, happy April of 2026. Um, but yeah, this podcast is airing on the official cannabis holiday, and there's a couple. Um, I think this is the biggest one. And, you know, it all stemmed from, I don't know if everyone knows the facts around why it's called 420, but I'm about to tell you. It's called 420 because it was code word for kids to go sneak out and smoke a joint, either uh during school, after school, work, whatever, right? It was that code word of 420 going out at 420, 40 and I'm assuming it's 420 p.m. 420 a.m. is more my speed if I'm gonna consume, quite frankly. But yeah, it's wild. So happy 420. Um, a lot of you may know this, but Simply J, our um national bookkeeping accounting financial data management practice, majority of our clients are cannabis. Uh, I think it's about 55% now as we diversify back into wellness and and real estate and a couple of other markets too. But cannabis operators, man, if the two words that come to mind when I hear cannabis operator is perseverance and hope, because that's what it takes. It is not an easy business, it can be successful. We have clients that are succeeding. I I am proud to say most most of our clients are succeeding. If they're not succeeding, it's because of a few factors. One of them is bad agreements, right? Being such a uh a quick, um, chaotic process of making sure you get your licensing and trying to be the first and gain the most market share and um appreciate and step into the market early for obviously more money. Thanks to the big MSOs, multi-state operators, they completely annihilated many markets. Uh, not cool. Uh that's kind of normal in business, quite frankly. But yeah, perseverance and hope. Like these beautiful humans, man, there's so many challenges around running a business. Um, and you know, there are risky debt and equity agreement scenarios in all businesses. But I feel like I've seen the most, and I've seen a lot of businesses. I've been looking at been involved in businesses, auditing businesses, reviewing businesses, reviewing financials, um, working with business owners for the last 20, oh my gosh. I can't even, I don't even want to admit it. 26 years. It's wild. And the last 26 years, I've seen a lot. I've seen small startups, I've seen big startups go public. Stacy Peterchip is one of them. I've seen um public companies, private companies. We have clients that literally range from $500,000 in revenue all the way up to $80 million. It it's just wild. Um, but the cannabis operators, you know, those debt and equity agreements are number one, definitely uh an issue for huge challenges for any business, especially a cannabis operator. The other is not managing resources and monitoring when you are in negotiations with your vendors and your customers. Because AR, accounts receivable, is the client's fault. There's no blaming their customers because if they had controls in place from the beginning, this would have been successful. And that's where we see a lot of huh. We we've taken on clients and they've been operating for three or four years, and that's one of the number one factors we're finding. Accounts receivable is a huge amount of money. I'm talking at least 500 grand, at least half a million. We've seen all the way up to close to three million. And thankfully, you know, we can we can make an impact on that, but sometimes it's just too late. Those those customers have gone out of business. They've gone bankrupt from the saturation of the market from all these different things. And it's really sad. It is really sad because you have to backpedal and it's additional energy, you know, instead of setting up terms. And I know some will go, yeah, yeah, there's no such thing as terms in cannabis. Yes, there are. But you should have cash on delivery for most when you're starting business 30 days max. If you're doing any more than that, you're putting yourself in risk of cash flow that you cannot risk because you need money to make money. It's fluidity 101. And you have to have you have to have reserves, especially when you have payroll and you have people's lives at stake. We we deal with this as simply J2. I mean, granted, it's 10, currently 10 women. Um, but and we haven't found yet men yet that are crazy enough to join us and want to do the work, but I'm sure they're out there. We we're looking for ya. Anyway, it's it's a lot. Perils a big responsibility, but W9s are also very risky too. 1099s, they're very risky too, because you have less control. Right? You don't know what's gonna happen. They could, you know, with them with employees, you have others, you have more than one. You got a backup plan, and treat them well, too, by the way. But yes, so bad debt and equity agreements, accounts receivable. I could go on and on. Inventory management. My goodness. Know your sell-throughs, don't overpurchase inventory, don't get ahead of the game and start buying all equipment and all the things because they're gonna become outdated and obsolete far quicker than you realize. It's true. I've seen it, been in the business for eight years now, I've seen it all. Going on nine. It's wild. It is kind of the wild, wild west because the lack of business acumen is the other thing.

SPEAKER_01 8:50

Not realizing what it takes to run a business. It's work. It's called work because it's work, right?

SPEAKER_00 9:02

It is work and making hasty decisions, not growing slow and steady, not monitoring expenses, not having bookkeeping accounting, not having clean financial data. I know I'm gonna talk about that because that's what we do, but damn, if you don't know what you're spending money on, how do you know if you're overspending? Do you have trend analysis? We've been starting to do that with our clients. Man, it's a challenge. Every client's a little different. Every client's a little different. We do our best to give them what we have, but you know, technology comes into play too, and AI, there's another risk. So you just gotta monitor. You have to keep track of things and you have to monitor. So the lack of business acumen is a third. And again, there's more, and they'll pop in during this podcast, but these operators are rock stars, and most of them have best purpose at heart. The ones that didn't have the best perfect purpose at heart came in and left quickly. Came in and came out. They're here to make money and they left. They probably don't even consume cannabis. Like, not cool. How do you sell something you don't truly believe in and you don't use? Right? What the fuck? Excuse my French. That's not doesn't seem logical to me. Anyway, there's that intuition, right, that we talk about. Um so yeah, being a cannabis operator, man, you have to spend a lot of money up front with the the way the licensing structure is. And and I we've seen operators that don't even own the building, and they have at least a half a million, if not more, in leasehold improvements. So they're making improvements on a property they don't even own. You better have really tight lease agreements, right? And there's still a risk. Still a risk. Are you gonna be there forever? Yeah, it was an investment, but did it give you the return you needed? Right? I've been reading financial statements for 26 years. And I've been watching businesses, I've been in businesses, I create businesses. We have four. So there's a lot to it being a cannabis operator. The challenges, not only bad decisions or bad circumstances, but the challenges. Oh, let's start with banking. Yeah, more banks are coming online. Yes, the fees aren't as expensive. We now have ability to negotiate those bank fees, because we've seen some of them like a thousand or dollars or more a month, and it's like, what? Our bank account? I think I pay nothing if we keep a balance in it, right? But there's a lot of compliance behind it. There's a there is risk. They can't use payment processors, most of them. I don't think any of them, quite frankly. Like if you're how do you know you're not using credit card lines, right? I mean, think about it. Oh, we're we're only on the ACH lines. Okay, well, uh there's so much complexity to it. And we have to be aware of what they can and cannot use. So bank accounts, and then obviously there's that fear of working with a cannabis operator. It is a Schedule One substance federally, which means it's an illegal substance, which means they're taxed federally at gross profit. So selling general and administrative expenses are non-deductible federally. And in some states, and in many states, I'm sure, I'm almost positive actually. We're in 13 states for Simply J, who's the financial data management uh company that has the 55% clients in cannabis. And it's um we as the bookkeepers and accountants need to understand what technology they can or cannot use. Because it sets them up for getting shut down. Social media gets shut down if they say something they shouldn't, right? Or in a lines with FDA and oh god. And they can lose their bank accounts. They use try and use credit cards personally and then get caught and get kicked out, right? You can't buy any raw materials, you can't buy ground cured weed on credit card, obviously. But even if you start buying some of the materials to grow the weed, you can get shut down. Right? There's this insurance is a l is limited, payroll companies are limited. All the ancillaries are are limited and challenged. Not to mention the technology that doesn't even have it's so new. Most of it, the reporting is junk. That's the biggest thing that we see. God, Blaze? I'm gonna say it. There's a couple of companies out there that have done their clients wrong. They have done their clients wrong, and we're seeing the ramifications of it. We're doing our best to support what we can to hold people accountable. We've seen operators using payment processors like Blaze, and I think it was something specific, but that it is dangerous. They're charging overcharging fees. We've had payment processors that don't get their money, and they have to go after these vendors like Blaze or Blaze Pay or whatever it is, and there's others, we know there's others, there's other instances those payment processors are no longer in business. They came in, got their money, and left. I'll say it. I'm a truthsayer. It's bullshit. But that's what's happening, and you have to be educated on what is the guardrails, which is so ridiculous because to me it is plant medicine, but whatever. All the damn guardrails that are instilled in this industry and where it's going is a little concerning. So we have to be aware to balance. And you're gonna see a lot of communications coming out specifically with the Massachusetts ballot that's coming up in November, right? It's you have to read it. If you read those regs that they're trying to push for the ballot, it's actually quite disgusting. It's comical because it shows you how manipulating they are. They're claiming all these beautiful benefits of managing the THC limits and making sure that kids don't gain access to it and all the things. But there's two sentences in there that completely destroys the recreational market where most of cannabis is being sold through. So you're gonna destroy that recreational market? I think not. And it's not gonna happen, by the way. It's not. Mass is gonna rally and go, I don't think so, because if we get rid of the rec market, we got a bunch of weed on the streets, man. And no, if we go all medical, that market's gonna be completely saturated and they're not gonna be able to compete. And it's also extremely expensive in the state of Massachusetts to have a license, a medical license. It's like five times the expense. Not to mention, they're also, and I think this is still valid, there's also guardrails where you have to be fully vertical, and that's an expense in of itself. What does that mean? Fully vertical? You have to have a cultivation, you have to have a manufacturing, you have to retail license, maybe even operator for uh delivery. I don't. There's so few of them, we don't even see them anymore. I can't even use my medical card around here. There's one dispensary that I have access to, and quite frankly, I don't want to go there. Because I know them and I know what's going on. I hear they got a lot of receivables.

SPEAKER_01 17:45

Hmm.

SPEAKER_00 17:46

So meaning they owe, they have a lot of payables, and meaning they owe, but uh whatever. Either way, everyone's gonna be held accountable. Uh this is the time, right? And so we have to hold strong and balance all the fear around cannabis, weed, pot, whatever you want to call it. We have to be careful. To me, it is a plant, it is plant medicine. But we have to understand if someone's pushing for medical, what is their purpose, what is their reasoning, and are they acting with integrity and authenticity? Are they acting with compassion and truth? Because I don't think these people are, and it's not gonna fly, especially the year of the fire horse. I say F that, right? F that, no way. So cannabis operators, man. It is, it is just um, it's a lot for you. And I send all of you, we give to our people ask me, do you do pro bono work? It's like, do you know what industries we support? Yes, we do pro bono work, right? I mean, we're supporting cannabis operas, we're supporting the arts, we're supporting wellness practitioners, we're supporting musicians. Not all of them are Bruce Springsteen, man. Like, you gotta it's reciprocity, give to receive, right? So it's it's not easy. I just think of it's not easy being cheesy, it's not easy being in the weed business. No, it isn't. And I'm a consumer. I am an empowered, beautiful human, full of love, full of light, full of authentic authenticity, couldn't say the word, oh, full of authenticity because I am, full of integrity, because I am. I mean, it's what I do. Am I always right? No, of course not, no one is. I have every right to change my mind at any point in time. But I'm I'm a CPA of 20 plus years. I'm a single mom. I own multiple businesses, I am a human of abundance. I'm living in it, rising and living in it. And you don't get it from greed, you don't get it from being a hermit, you don't get it from doing nothing. The reason I'm saying all of this sounds very pompous, right? It's not meant to. It's to tell you, I consume cannabis. My my 10-year-old daughter knows she knows it's mommy's medicine. And when do I consume it? 3 34 in the morning. That's right. It's part of my yoga flow, it's part of my kitchen dancing, it's part of my meditation. I don't have to use it, but I do love it. I even have a video floating out there of me recording myself at a conference because I was in such agony with a migraine, because I over overextended myself, overgave myself, sucked my energy dry, blah blah blah, which I've learned not to do anymore. And that's how you get migraines for me. I think a lot of sickness is internal, right? And cannabis is the only thing that allowed me to attend that conference. It was the only way. Yes, I was dropping 10. Oh god. An edible of 10 milligrams. I had to. I had to because it is a necessity for me when I'm trying to be my best self. Sometimes you need it, sometimes you have to do the things, you know. And Others consume as a collective, you know, it's a social aspect. Um, I also consume when I'm in creative mode. It allows for creativity to flow. I mean, you don't you don't necessarily need it. I do it without it too, but it is a beautiful thing. And oh, by the way, we have an endocannabinoid system that kind of simulates with it. So it's just wild. So if you don't know about the endocannabinoid system, please look that up. And just read what people are proposing for that ballot. Like, actually read the legislation that they're trying to push by, not the ballot write-up, because that can be obviously complete false, like many other things, or there to manipulate you and confuse you. But the rec market is dominating because the medical market didn't survive. And why is it? Because they put up too many guardrails to access it. So they're literally doing the complete opposite of what cannabis was meant to do, if you ask me. It's a plant, it's plant medicine. We've been using this since before Christ, for goodness' sake. It's there's evidence everywhere that it was used in religious ceremonies. Normal everyday use. Man, it's there. The proof is there. Yes, it can be harmful if it's not regulated. Yes, it could be used as a coping mechanism. So can anything else. Food, alcohol, coffee, sugar, right? So there is still a little bit of Nixon left. Like that needs to die. He was wrong. Absolutely wrong. He wasn't a good human anyway. We all know this. Read up on him. Like WTF. And there's another person, I'm not even gonna name him. He can just, whatever. Another person involved too. It's it's not what it is. It's an illusion. Cannabis is not for everyone either. I'm not saying everybody go out and smoke pot. I don't even I rarely smoke cannabis, weed, pot, Mary J, whatever. The chronic. I rarely smoke it, but when I do, it's usually in a social setting. It's connection. And use it. Obviously, don't use it while you're driving. Get all right. The worst thing that's gonna happen is you're gonna drive about 10 miles an hour. You're thinking you're going 50 the speed limit and you're actually going 15, right? I mean, yes, of course. Be mindful, hold yourself accountable. But humans are fallible, they're fallible. We all know this. But yeah, I am very appreciative of our cannabis operators. I call most of them our friends. They're not just colleagues, clients, they're friends. The ancillary business that supports them has a lot of great people in it. Um we've built our coalition of cannabis humans. So blessed. If you're interested in our services, please check us out at simplyj.rocks, R O C K S, because we do rock. That team rocks, they really do. And we're learning a lot too. Every business is learning, every leader learns, everyone learns. Uh man, happy 420. Do it safely, enjoy, laugh, giggle, eat some good food because it always tastes better. Watch a funny movie. Oh my god. Four Christmases, Harriet. Oh my god. Um, yeah. I even love staying home in a safe space and having my edible, that's how I consume. It's an edible. Five, five milligrams. Um, and it's it's uh solventless or rosin-based, live rosin, sativa, preferably, yes please, right? Because I don't want to be sleepy. I got shit to do. I have things to conquer. Um, but it's it's just a beautiful experience for me, and I'm certain it is for others. Um be aware if you're drinking wine and you're making fun of the pothead, you gotta look in that mirror, man. It's not cool. I've had friends literally make fun of me. Like I'd go outside and take a couple of puffs, come back in, and they're like two bottles deep in wine, and I'm and they're making fun of me, and I'm like, wait, what? Hold on, hold on, and then I'll call them out for it, and I still love them for it. Whatever, I don't give a shit. But there are very successful humans that consume cannabis. I'm one of them. There's many of us. Get off the blinders, see for what it really is. Love and light. It begins here. Thanks for listening. Love and light to all you beautiful humans.