Podcast: Altavie + The Business of Cannabis

I was recently on a panel at House of VR hosted by AltaVie, a recreational cannabis brand by MedReleaf. It was broadcast live on The 4:19, a daily show by Jay Rosenthal & The Business of Cannabis. We had a great chat about how we use cannabis in our lives and how is changing the world and becoming accessible to those who need it, for example, from somewhere like this shop weed online. That was not all though. Cannabis is being transformed into other forms like oils which can be used for people with health problems and not to smoke, you can visit Yours Nutrition to get your hands on some CBD oil. I actually know quite a few people who use cannabis for both medicinal and recreational purposes so I was fascinated by this opportunity to explore cannabis in more detail. For example, a friend of mine has recently started to use the purple space cookies strain to manage her stress levels. I will definitely be telling her to check out this talk. Scroll down to listen and watch a few snippets on video. Listen to ‘Cannabis Everyday on the 4:19 The panel starts around the 3-minute mark and is just over half an hour. Hit play below to listen and check out more episodes of the 4:19 here. Joining me on the panel were Shannon O’Hearn, Manager, Clinic Affairs, MedReleaf, Ming Bérubé-Sam, Yoga instructor, cannabis patient. The panel looked at a series of meanings of “Cannabis Everyday” – from medical applications to incorporation into wellness regimes to adult-use recreational use. Thank you AltaVie & MedReleaf for providing the space for us to have these conversations. I’m looking forward to more like this in the future as Canada becomes a world leader in legal cannabis. You can already see…

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Lift & Co. High Profile

Here’s an excerpt from my interview with Lift & Co about how I use cannabis in my life and why I decided to talk about it. Read the full interview here. There are some good interviews in this series including Mary Zilba from Housewives of Vancouver, B-Real from Cypress Hill, Comedian Donell Rawlings, and DJ Unimerce. With the legislation around the corner and heaps of cool cannabis events popping up, I’m ok coming out of the ‘cannabis closet’. I’ve talked to my parents about it, my mum thinks it cool and likes that I’m on the cusp of something new. I feel the same excitement and energy as when social media was just getting started. A lot of creativity is going into marketing, branding, and storytelling around cannabis. At this point, I feel if a brand doesn’t want to work with me because I use cannabis, that’s ok. My blog is called This Is My Life and this is my life! As a female entrepreneur, I feel like it’s a blessing that a new industry is opening up around something I’m passionate about and have experience in. If I can use my voice to help shed a positive light on an incredible and natural substance, why not?! After all medical cannabis has some amazing properties, from both active compounds – THC and CBD, THC being the psychoactive compound that results in the user feeling “high” or “stoned” whereas CBD (most commonly in the form of CBD Oil) owns the more medical properties, allowing the user to calm down, destress, cope with pain and much more, if you don’t fancy getting high, you could always see how CBD could help you, try looking into CBD sites like CBD Nationwide. You have to take a chance sometimes. When I started my blog,…

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High Tea: You Can Roll With Us

You walk past a group of beautiful, stylish ladies outside a cute and classy coffee shop in a quiet neighbourhood. Everything looks normal until you get a little closer and see a cloud of smoke big enough for a rap video and realise what’s up! ? So much so you might be tempted to grab your TONIC rolling papers and join us! The other week I had a really cool experience of attending an event called ‘See You Next Tuesday‘ hosted by the fine ladies of the High Tea podcast (listen here). It was a rolling salon and flower side chat where we had an in-depth lesson on rolling the perfect joint and talked about cannabis. As you can imagine we also spoke about some of the lesser known cannabis infused products out there such as moonrock canada. We each took home a few goodies and fresh cut flowers. It was fun! The High Tea podcast was started to create ‘high-vibe entertainment, for women who also love weed‘. Each episode is a ‘blunt and thoughtful exploration of pot and its magic‘. I love the play on words you’ll find in everything they share including the name of the event series. Thanks for hosting a fun night! Over the past few months, I’ve spent more time having great conversations with amazing women over cannabis vs. late nights with too much wine. It’s so much of a healthier lifestyle, I’ve cut down my drinking significantly and even lost weight. The side effects of cannabis are much more positive including increased creativity and less pain/anxiety, instead of a hangover. When talking about the effects of cannabis, many often wonder, “are cbd terpenes important?” When it comes to people’s experience with the drug, it does look that way. There are lots of different reasons…

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It Takes Practice.

This weekend was super relaxing. Bed early on Friday, Saturday nap, made dinner & dessert, Sunday boating, blogging, reading. I love the weekend to slow down, talk less, sleep more, and take a break from email. I didn’t use to be so good at it, I had to work at relaxing, I couldn’t sit still. Last year I went to regular yoga at a studio. One of my fav parts about yogayoga was the practice, making time for it, laying on my mat, moving through the poses, sweating, meditating. Something I learned from my teacher, Sandy was ‘not reacting takes practice‘. And although she said it in the context of trying to stay still in savasana, I carried it with me right out the door and into my life. Not reacting takes practice. It took me a while to be able to lay there, still on the floor with my thoughts and not move when a bead of sweat dripped across my face. I’ve been doing yoga on our rooftop patio and it’s good but not that same as a quiet room and music lead by someones calming, familiar voice. [Studio is back open in January!] When I think back to Sandy saying ‘not reacting takes practice’ it’s so true if you apply that to stressful situations. Especially those where you could react with rage or anger, not reacting there is a real test of your patience and just how much practice you’ve had. My mum has a couple of good sayings like ‘water off a duck’s back‘ or ‘build a bridge and get over it‘. She always knows the right thing to say. If you’re feeling stressed or holding something inside, let it go. Write it on a piece of paper and throw it in the fire. There is…

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Head in the Clouds: Altavie & The Art of Now

Not long I went to an event at Only One Gallery featuring a reading by NYC poet Cleo Wade hosted by MedReleaf‘s brand, Altavie. It was one of the first cannabis-focused events I’d attended, it stood out with its classiness and the incredibly cool group of mostly women in attendance. The night started with a guided meditation where everyone closed their eyes to take a few minutes for themselves. The panel was hosted by Briony Douglas who’s art was displayed around the gallery with a few other artists (Alpo Snow, Tahsin- The Good and Enzee Creative. Briony is one of my favs I have couple pieces from her recent show MOUTHPIECE in my room. AltaVie by MedReleaf aims to help make mindfulness more attainable Altavie is a high-end cannabis brand with a movement towards mindfulness, being present, and living in the now. Cannabis products are becoming more and more well known for their mental health benefits, for example, in helping with anxiety, depression and insomnia, and there are many different kinds of products out there, from CBD vaping cartridges (check out this CBDFX discount code if you’re interested in those) to products like Altavie. I was there thinking, ‘wow this weed brand is so ME right now, how is this really happening‘. Life is such a dream. It’s amazing how so much has changed – now there are more cannabis brands reaching customers with the help of an SEO agency specializing in the cannabis industry which once upon a time, not too long ago, would have been totally unheard from. How times have changed, and for the better too, I would say! The only product currently on the website is a cannabis-free a nut bark that looks pretty good called Cannabis Crunch. It’s infused with cannabis inspired flavours (toffee, cinnamon,…

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Up North: Summertime Glamping at The New Farm

I went glamping on a farm and it was amazing. Chefs cooked all the food, we did yoga in a barn listening to Tragically Hip, I went in a greenhouse, there was a pond, the outdoor showers were glam, and there were 250 people. I knew this would be cool based on the invite, it was unique. ????? The glamping trip was hosted by Up Cannabis at The New Farm. The Tragically Hip are big investors in the company and the band was there the whole day and had dinner with the group. It was the first big cannabis event I have been to. There were plenty of edibles floating around as well. Like the edibles online that people regularly order. Seeing as I was new to it all when they kept referring to their business as a cannabusiness and at the time, I wasn’t too familiar with this term. But the more I spoke to some of the people there, the more of a better understanding I had. I should have read This CBDistillery Review before going then, I would have had so much more knowledge. There are so many things you have to think about when running a cannabusiness. For example, before this trip, I knew very little about the wide range of cannabis packaging options out there, but now I am something of an expert! It was also the nicest camping experience I have ever had and would 100% do that again. Up Cannabis can’t actually share their product with us but for the 50 media that stayed over to camp, they infused the same terpenes found in the product into the soaps, drinks, food, and everything around us. The event was really well done. The tents were like little apartments with electricity, real beds, furniture, lights,…

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Exciting Times Ahead: Biome Grow & Cannabis Marketing

Last week some exciting family news hit the Global Newswire! About a year ago, the team at Occupied VR came up with an idea for a virtual reality weed dispensary. Well FF? to last week, we announced that Weed VR has been acquired by licenced cannabis producer Biome Grow. Check out the news release here. If you’re reading this and are thinking ‘what is Weed VR, I want to try it“. Email me [email protected] or send me a DM on any social platform and we’ll hook you up. Comments are open on this post if you have questions. Essentially, it’s a virtual retail dispensary and soon to be the largest library of 3D cannabis strains for educational purposes. A virtual dispensary is a truly revolutionary way to market and ultimately sell cannabis products. It is a modern alternative to a traditional dispensary that typically features store fixtures and merchandise displays and instead offers an entirely new way to shop. I cannot wait to see how everything plays out. If you’d like stay up to date with all cannabis news specifically relating to the CBD, have access to educational articles, reviews, medical research news and more then you may want to visit TheCBDInsider.com. It’s a really exciting time to be in this business. I’ve seen some really creative marketing, events, and promotional products. The striped metal grinder card and papers in the top photo are from Van Der Pop, a female-focused Cannabis brand. They send a cool package a couple months ago. Next week I’m going glamping with UP Cannabis near Blue Mountain with a bunch of media peeps. (UP is the cannabis company partially owned by the Tragically Hip!) This stage of the industry kinda reminds me of early days of social media. Back when my friends would make fun…

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The Hardest Part is Through

This past week was a hard one for me. Actually, this entire month has been a challenge, I’ve been on the verge of a meltdown since May 2017 started with birthday anxiety. I had a trip to Jamaica that started with an allergic reaction in my eyes, where I couldn’t see that well, it rained heaps, I missed my bf, and I got my period. When I got home I was overwhelmed with anxiety about work I needed to get done, and it was a short week. I went to the 1188 office every day to get the music video I directed wrapped up, and didn’t really have time to work (at home like usual) on blog things. The week finished week with a full day on set. I was so tired. Finally, on Saturday, it happened. I legit had a meltdown. Our car had a problem with the tire so I rented a car for the afternoon with my car sharing app and left around 11:15 to make it to Scarborough by 12:15. Well, no, that wasn’t happening. It took me 45 min to get to the DVP (highway downtown for non-TO peeps) and by then I was feeling super stressed after leaving the house in a huff w/ Sean. Then mum called and it opened the floodgates to me balling my eyes out, stuck in traffic. It seemed like everything around me was collapsing. Then, it started raining and the event I was about to drive an hour to was canceled. BUT, I was already on the DVP and still in traffic. I took a few deep breaths and decided to get off the highway. Didn’t really know where I was heading but the end goal was home. I decided to put on the Lumineers album and for…

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Live Action Short Drama? Story of My Life! 2017 #CdnScreenAwards Recap

Last weekend I attended the Canadian Screen Awards as a guest of the First Weekend Club. It was my second year attending the ‘Canadian Oscars’ after last year winning the award for Voice Pioneer at CSA’s Social Awards. The awards were hosted by Howie Mandel and held at the Sony Centre on Front Street. I absolutely love attending these kinds of Canadian events. Since my first job working in TV almost 10 years ago, and being on tv/in a couple documentaries since, I’ve grown to know a lot of people in the industry. I love seeing old friends and colleagues take the stage and supporting creative work by amazing Canadians. One highlight of the show for me was when Strombo announced an award in the name of Canadian filmmaker and friend Rob Stewart (Sharkwater) who recently passed away. Starting in 2018, the award for Best Science or Nature Documentary Program or Series will be in Rob Stewart’s name. The pre-show was hosted by Emma Hunter (The Beaverton) who was super funny. My fav line of hers was when she was announcing the nominees for ‘Live Action Short Drama’ and she said ‘story of my life’. I was like ME TOO GIRL, ME TOO. Haha. I made notes in my phone during the show of Canadian films to add to my watch list including Weirdos, Born to be Blue, and Two Lovers And A Bear. Thanks you kindly First Weekend Club for inviting me to be your guest. I hope to attend more Canadian Films things with you this year!

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Hi from Vancouver, Next Stop Hong Kong!

 This is me after flying 5hrs from Toronto to Vancouver. HIIIII! It’s quite cloudy here, no surprise there! We’re about to board the plane for the 14hr flight to Hong Kong. I’ll hopefully sleep for most of the flight. Managed to sleep for 3/5 hours on the way here. I have no problem catching the zzzz’s! We have 4hrs in the Hong Kong airport which will be pretty neat I reckon. Stoked for the warm weather in Thailand. Had a great sandwich from Air Canada on the way here and watched ‘Now You See Me’.  A movie about magicians who rob bangs with magic tricks. I was in and out of sleep near the end so I don’t quite recall what happened. The view flying into Vancouver through these beautiful clouds over the mountains was breathtaking! Catch y’all on the flip side! <3 CASIE

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When something is the most real, it is the realest.

It’s amazing how beautiful this weather is. The sunshine makes me happy. I’m pretty sure I saw some kite boarders on the south side of the Island yesterday. Must have been freezing! Can you believe it’s already Daylight Savings time this weekend? Today Twitter launched a new thing called Stories. I like this one. I’ve got a bunch of Twitter stories to share. I’ve been using Storify to tell stories with  Tweets, this is next level. Stoked to host the Canadian Club Speakeasy tomorrow night. Location has just finished a bunch of reno’s and we went over all the details yesterday. I still need to find an outfit! Ahh. Reminding you that you are younger today than you will be again, GO OUT AND DO SOMETHING AWESOME 🙂

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Emotion is an unlimited resource.

“Like power, you get Love by giving it”  Page 53 Been reading this book.  So many good quotes. It starts off with all these references to brands I’ve worked with and countless stories about New Zealand. I had to put it down a few pages in.  I was overwhelmed by coincidences. (They’re not coincidences.) I’ve been in Love with the Saatchi & Saatchi brand for a long time. They’re a Lovemark of mine. Thanks Shannon for the gift, I love it. “Love marks of the new century will be the brands and businesses that create emotional connections with the communities and networks they live in.” Page 60 “Keep it simple: set high standards andthen exceed them. Meet, Beat, Repeat.” Page 62 Marcus Troy posted this today. If you don’t know him he is a smart guys & lifestyle blogger who really gets personal branding. Read about him on LegendsLeague. Page is from the book “Be Great”. I bought it after reading a few pages.

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google image search ‘working out’ & this picture shows up pg. 11

Lisa found this one today. Weird eh. Especially considering I’m not into working out! I wonder what other interesting search terms will return my photo? If you find an interesting one, let me know. This is what happened yesterday, kinda: Working on the #unnecessarywheels drawing collection….gimme an object. Anything random! Photo: broken heart emergency http://tumblr.com/xmjew423j 12seconds – Sounds like clapping but really is a nice drumming. http://tiny12.tv/365TF Today on Y&R: Kevin is crushed when Ryder doesn’t show up to court. Watch the full episode on CBS.com: http://bit.ly/ba1bgP /via @YandR_CBS Drum circle. Wanna come? (@ Trinity Bellwoods Park) http://4sq.com/cyYKFi Boys in bands in line in front. (@ The Beer Store) http://4sq.com/cp0Yub Photo: RT @crystalgibson: God put me on Earth for three reasons: To make loud music, gay videos and cause a… http://tumblr.com/xmjevttg9 Got these today too 🙂 #flowers http://twitpic.com/2bcbd7 Photo: i got a wicked pants romper today http://tumblr.com/xmjevlvg2 Photo: i need this paua shell feather STAT. http://tumblr.com/xmjevlohy Photo: nice rings http://tumblr.com/xmjevk5pa please pick ME!!!! RT @mtvcanada: Want to win tickets to see Rihanna with @keshasux in Toronto on Thursday? RT to win! Must live in TO. Imma gonna eat you. http://twitpic.com/2bbrm2 Phone is dead. Msg you back when home 20mins. these are the 4 babes for @wakestockcanada this weekend http://bit.ly/abk5Xo me @raymitheminx @carlyannedotcom @laurenonizzle 🙂 #blog does anyone have a cottage in Collingwood that can bunk 4 hot babes this weekend? Pretty please with daisy dukes/bikini on top!! 🙂 Morning friends. Up for a bike ride then spening the day with a family friend who was like my fairy god mother growing up. So excited 🙂 Happy Birthday @marcandrewsmith darling 🙂 xo in reply to marcandrewsmith #

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you’re sexy, you’re cute, put down your riot suit

Her dad is an engineer, this might work. Ya? Our streets. Wondered if anyone was gonna say something about my outfit, but nah. I guess I don’t look like a trouble maker? Kinda hard when I’m so smiley all the damn time. It’s true. Then it rained. It got kinda crazy so I bounced. I ran home in the downpour and by that time I looked like this. What a crazy thing. ATTENTION WORLD LEADERS: THERE IS A BETTER WAY. Find it. Do it. Don’t waste money and time on all the crap that we saw this weekend. SRSLY. Love Casie ♥

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