Using the power of his celebrity to power the cannabis movement Emmy Award winning talk show host, Montel Williams joins Dan Humiston to talk about his podcast, Let's Be Blunt With Montel. He explains how using cannabis as an alternative to opioids has helped him strive with Multiple Sclerosis for over two decades. They discuss how the high-profile guests that he attracts to his podcast bring legitimacy to cannabis which helps to balance all the misinformation and ignorance. Produced by PodConX Potcasters - https://podconx.com/podcasts/potcasters Dan Humiston - https://podconx.com/guests/dan-humiston Montel Williams - https://podconx.com/guests/montel-williams Let's Be Blunt With Montel - https://podconx.com/podcasts/lets-be-blunt-with-montel
Using the power of his celebrity to power the cannabis movement
Emmy Award winning talk show host, Montel Williams joins Dan Humiston to talk about his podcast, Let's Be Blunt With Montel. He explains how using cannabis as an alternative to opioids has helped him strive with Multiple Sclerosis for over two decades. They discuss how the high-profile guests that he attracts to his podcast bring legitimacy to cannabis which helps to balance all the misinformation and ignorance.
Produced by PodConX
Potcasters - https://podconx.com/podcasts/potcasters
Dan Humiston - https://podconx.com/guests/dan-humiston
Montel Williams - https://podconx.com/guests/montel-williams
Let's Be Blunt With Montel - https://podconx.com/podcasts/lets-be-blunt-with-montel
PC Montel
Dan Humiston: [00:00:00] Right everyone. Thanks for joining us. And welcome back. We have another great show in store for you today. Montel Williams is here to talk about his show. Let's be blunt with Montel Montel. Welcome to the show.
Montel Williams: Thank you so much for having me.
Dan Humiston: I am so glad you could join us. You know, Like everyone else in the world. I knew you from your talk show, but it wasn't until.
I saw you in person, you were the keynote speaker at a cannabis conference that I produced in LA a couple years ago. That really, really appreciated just how dynamic you are in person during the keynote. You have the audience, on this journey of emotion, from laughing to crying. And, and I, I thought about it afterwards.
And I think the reason that you had us in the Palm of your hand was just that you made yourself vulnerable. were open about your disease. And I thought that was a great place for us , to start today over the last two decades, you've lived with Ms. And maybe we can start off by telling us a little bit about [00:01:00] what that's like.
Montel Williams: , I'm very blessed about an 18 year active duty 22 year for a full term. Fishery in the U S military and, graduated the United States Naval academy, graduate degree in engineering from the Naval academy in Annapolis, Maryland.
And I'm a person who, doesn't except just someone telling me things. I like to, find ashes for oneself as much as I can. And so I should have been diagnosed with that. And that's back in 1980 before I graduated, it had. But a God who misdiagnosed me for about 20 years to the point that I finally got diagnosed.
live by this kind of moniker in my own brain that no human being walking. This planet is God. So if doctors were God, none of us would be second. So that means. And, the reason why they are doctors and they get to put those little letters behind their name is because they went to school.
They studied I can go to school to study myself. Not that I think that my whole course or study is any greater than what theirs is, but at least it gives me an [00:02:00] understanding of what their baseline is when they're talking about. And so it was first diagnosed with disease and that doctor's telling me I will be in a wheelchair in five years while I was 15 years ago.
And I'm still not in the wheelchair. So clearly their crystal ball isn't as clear as they think it is. And why? Because I set about trying to understand what this was. I was afflicted with. No, I needed to dig in as deep as I possibly could to find out all the information that I could possibly find out about that.
And then try to figure out, is there any new drools or temperature information that will tell me how to cope with this and deal with this better everybody's disease? As I'm asking is different. Mine was such that, my disease was affected considerably by my life. Hey, I exercised the fact that I needed to take medication, I believe in Western medication, but I don't think that's the end all.
And so I recognized very quickly that, just Western medication regimen was not going to be enough. And I [00:03:00] started digging in deeper and deeper and deeper. And so finding out some things about cannabis, one of my biggest symptoms for. There's a neuropathic pain or, in the toolkit the doctors have in this country, the toolkit was, and still does only include opioids.
And I found out very quickly when I figured out that I had an aversion to all people, which version of me that didn't work as well. For me, it's like what brought people. And I was, taking 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 post. I was one of those before we started screaming about the opioid epidemic and the opioid addiction crisis in America.
I almost addicted myself to open design, a doctor friend who was a good one, who said he was writing something on prescription till the I'm done with you. I'm not right anymore because I know what you do on that. You are doctor shopping, you're out hunting for sounds about four or five of the other doctors that I know that you're getting calls from.
And they're not going to read your renewal scripts anymore. This is back into. And he [00:04:00] said, but I had heard Montano lived. There is this weird effect that marijuana has for people who have your type of Ms, where they have gotten relief from very loose from that than they do from the open, which so he wasn't saying most of the time we using the tool then.
So he said, I think you want to your SWAT guy, this wish I figured this out. So I started back in 2001 before. Looking for, cannabis. And he said, I know there's a sample call, like CD songs, CDC. So he couldn't even explain to me what CBD was and didn't recognize the fact that he didn't understand cannabinoids period.
So I will make sure I get clear to people that CBD is not the end all we all thought it cannabis has the resource of research for over 50 years for the last 30 years, know the doctor who's because the godfather of cannabis talking show, who I interviewed in his laboratory in Israel back in 2010 has stated unequivocally that cannabis works better in lots RA's effect [00:05:00] when you make sure we bring in all of the cannabinoids.
And so what though I took this advice and started searching for high. CVB Laden cannabis then started to recognize that, there was advocations as long before it became over yet tiny years in the lab, looking for CBG, I'm looking for CBN. I've been looking at THCA. CBDA looking at all of the very because we know that the plant has somewhere close to, depending on who you listen to between a hundred to 2, 250 cannabinoids, and try to make sure I do a full.
With some emphasis on other cannabinoids. And that brought me relief and relief enough that, and I think that's one of the things that we have to differentiate in the brains of humans. So we say, well, that helped relieve my pain. It may not have actually relieved or pain as much as it
put your brain in a direction that makes that pain more palatable. [00:06:00] And. Literally focus on that pain, but focus on other things. And so I've used haven't always since 2000, really 2001, every single day of my life try to mitigate the pain as best as the, the lay crafts, the late spasms and it is work.
And when I started to find out. I wanted to make sure I could share with others. So I went on a mission back in 2000 long before it was when I couldn't get any support from anybody in Hollywood. I couldn't get any support from anybody. Even high times back then I couldn't get support because people were afraid of Stepping forward.
So I started speaking for legislatures all over the country. I testified as well, as I said, New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, Florida, and out, Arizona in California, Oregon all over the country, try to ensure patients like me. No clear [00:07:00] access to medication that could give them some relief and take everybody else out of the conversation except for them and their doctor.
And that's been, really what's driven me now for 20 years, I've been in and out of this industry creating my own brands and I'm helping other people create their own brands and, and being a champion for the cause to make sure that people get getting. Untethered and unfettered access to medication that works for them without anybody else, one of their mouth and getting involved in the conversation.
Oh man, it is, it's so important that somebody of your stature , put your name behind it. That's just had, had a lot of guts. I'm sure there was some pushback early on. Is that kind of what prompted you to start the podcast? Well, they're not that it's the pushback, but you know, in recent years I had the time and in the last couple of years, since we've been doing this and we've done whatever, it's 178 episodes or I've had, and it's [00:08:00] all about creating awareness and education and giving lifestyle tips and doing some B2B, helping people understand what they need to do to be successful at running a cannabis business.
The winds of change and , the landslide against is as prevalent as it's been since the first day. Any state legalized. And that's one of the things I think this industry is forgetting. We take, oh yeah. Great. We're in a great pace to greenwash. There's no green rush. know, You have states like what, like the North Dakota who were trying to fight the will of the people are trying to see if they can get rid of voted in legislation that says let's make cannabis illegal.
Every half the states that are out there, it'll new passed. Okay. They passed last year. Why is there not administered? Rules and regulations on how to implement a program of value, because there's too much pushback in a world where you got a product that no matter how you try to rape it, [00:09:00] like we've got companies like GW pharma without a dialects charter, $30,000 a year.
Are you kidding me? Who? A plant? That's a weed stock. It was stupid. And for those who think. All we're in great times right now, we are not in great times. Right now. We got president of the United States and she still thinks cannabis is a gateway drug.
Vice president lied said that they were going to do something about cannabis on the first day, a hundred days of their term. And haven't done a thing and made sure that while she was, , the attorney general, the level of, nonviolent cannabis arrests and the state of California and conviction.
Went through the roof. We are not living in times that aren't as cannabis is as most people think.
Dan Humiston: Well, even makes it more important for people like you. And I think with your podcast, you have access to a lot of other big name star. And , they feel comfortable on your show enough to talk about their love for the plan. I think that [00:10:00] is, is helping to drive this in the right direction.
Hopefully I have a great clip from an interview you did with your friend, a legendary rapper and actor Redmond. Let me just play this right now.
But at least we invited to show that doesn't put it back. There's
not that many people who were messed up one was awesome. Open in the same. Are we looking at it as Hey, this is my business. Going to block any coal that we lost smoke this area out so bad that.
Right to the world. That is great. He's not telling that story to Jimmy Fallon. He's telling it to UV first. He feels comfortable with you. That was his.
Montel Williams: Yeah. And, I think one of the ways that they've run them and who is Reggie noble, but, Reggie he calls me UNC literally just did something that I think is going to be one of the most [00:11:00] important things that has been done for the cannabis movement in the last 30 years.
And that is, he had his.
team. I filed for federal authority to put together the national cannabis. So now, like the democratic party and the Republican party, there is a party that's called a national cannabis party that has rights to put candidates up in states all over America for very legislated, positions.
And I think once people recognize how powerful this could be. We may really have now find finally a solid guttural voice that no one can tell.
Dan Humiston: Yeah, I saw you just did an interview with him about that recent.
Montel Williams: Yes. that's one of the episodes that just the hair recently, but I've had, and I've had a Jim Belushi on Tommy Chung on, Cooper, Andrews off or walking, dead the celebrities. And then I've had some of the top doctors. In the world, from Dr. [00:12:00] Jordan tissue from Harvard medical school professor, I've had. Even Britain on who's is a former NFL player. I've had people on from, working with an organization from cannabis women around the world as an African cannabis company, that's called Athol helium.
Now getting ready to jump into the marketplace. I'm also working with a cannabis company out of Columbia. I'm really working with and trying to get the word out to make people number one. I think the biggest problem with cannabis in America is education. Unfortunately, we've done. I think a fairly decent job in this country and a fairly decent job doing B2B education.
This is the business education, but we've done a really shitty job when it comes to B to C educating. And letting the consumer know that there's a viable option fact, that there are some people who still believe that cannabis is a gateway drug. That means the cannabis industry has done a bad job.
The fact that there are still people out there who paint the cannabis is highly. That means the cannabis industry has done a bad job, so we [00:13:00] need to get out and start educating. I had a doctor on the day from George Washington university, talked to him, Mechelle Kogan, who just wrote a book about medical marijuana his take on a medical marijuana.
And he's literally getting into the likes of George Washington university to step up to the table and understand that this should be included integrated medicine because we recognize that, the medical community. Done such a poor job in educating themselves on options that are available to white now.
Dan Humiston: I know you're running late on time, but before I let you go, you're one of , my generation's best interviewers for aspiring podcasters that are listening to this show right now. Can you just share with them a little advice on some of the things you've learned from interviewing people
Montel Williams: I mean, one of the most important things. To be a good interviewer is to be a good listener. You have to, you can go into an interview thinking that you have, I put together 10 questions. Well, those 10 questions could be meaningless after the first [00:14:00] two minutes of the interview. When somebody says something that you weren't paying attention to, or that you were paying attention to, and you decided to go in that direction instead.
I think one of the most important things is to listen. The second thing is, all the definition of who you are as a. And don't be afraid to share that definition, share who you are, because I think that that's the most important thing that people were coming to podcast. If people will come in to watch in a format where one person is interviewing.
other, they really want to get a sense of school.
The person isn't there.
Dan Humiston: That is such good advice. And like I said, when I saw you in person, you're you there's no, there's no other Montel. And for people that want to listen to, let's be blunt with Montel. There's a new episode every week on all the major podcast sites. Please check it out. Montel. This has been such a real honor for me.
, I'm a big fan. And thank you so much for being on the show today.
Montel Williams: Thank you, sir. Maybe there's just do a little [00:15:00] shameless plug, but I've got one that's got come up to do. Which was as Dr. Mechelle Kogan, who was a doctor of integrative medicine and palliative care from George Washington university. And I got to tell you a catalyst and this doctor, because he has spins and truth that everybody needs air.
Dan Humiston: Well, I will make sure the links to that show are in, in the show notes, but, and people have to listen to that again. Thank you so much for doing this today.