matthew: hi, i’m matthew kind. every mondayand wednesday look for a fresh episode where i’ll take you behind the scenes and interviewthe leaders of the rapidly evolving cannabis industry. learn more at www.cannainsider.com.that’s www.cannainsider.com. do you know that feeling when you sense opportunity, whenyou see something before most people and you just know it will be successful, then you'reready. ready for cannainsider consulting. learn more at www.canninsider.com/consulting.now here's your program. foria is a natural thc infused personal lubricantfor women designed to optimize pleasure and sensual delight. i am pleased to welcome tothe show co-found of foria, jon brandon. welcome to cannainsider jon.
jon: thank you matt. it’s good to be here. matthew: jon you have a very interesting productthat a lot of people are talking about. can you give us some detail on what exactly foriais and how people are using it? jon: absolutely. happy to discuss it and reallyglad to be here with you and your listeners today. foria, as you mentioned, is a thc infusedlubricant. it is designed for women specifically. and our goal with the product really is tohelp folks at any point along the pleasure spectrum enhance and really accentuate theirsensual experience. so that can really take a number of different forms. for some peopleit’s increased lubrication. for some people it assists them with just being more relaxedwhen they are in an intimate or sexual context.
some people report an easier ability to accessorgasm or achieve multiple orgasms. for some people it helps them sleep better frankly.and for other folds they feel kind of a reconnection to certain parts of themselves, kind of helpswith their feeling and desire around arousal in wanting to experience more pleasure withintheir bodies. matthew: now i would love if you could takeus back to the initial conversations. where you sitting around the fire with some buddies?how did you come up with this idea for foria? what sparked the idea? jon: yeah it’s a great question. so i haveto give credit for the original idea to my business partner, matthew gerson, and matthew’sbackground is in the sexual health and wellness
space. he had previously started a condomcompany called sir richard’s. so he had been in and around pleasure and wellness andsexual health for a number of years. and he was really kind of curious, got curious aroundthe intersection of cannabis, and you know, cannabis as an aphrodisiac is not a new concept.we didn’t invent it certainly. it’s been used across many cultures for many years inthat fashion. but he was specifically thinking about cannabis and the potential interplaywith other things, in this case our primary material in the product other than cannabisis coconut oil. and coconut oil has a number of fairly well accepted health benefits includingmoisturizing and lubricate. it happens to also have antimicrobial, antifungal properties.so it’s used by a lot of people for lubrication
and just for general skin things as well. and so i think the flash inspiration for himwas just kind of combining those two, combining cannabis and coconut oil. the kind of earlyexperimenting with testing, you know, started to suggest that there was something reallyexciting here to explore further and put some more energy into really understanding andlooking at what this might be for folks. matthew: i’m a big fan of coconut oil andmedium chain triglyceride oils. if anybody listening has not experienced coconut oilor just what it can do for the human body, just take a little bit of extra virgin, orvirgin coconut oil, put it on your hand and you can see how readily it’s absorbed intothe skin. the human body and medium chain
triglycerides just really work well together.it’s amazing to see. now i want to go into your background a little bit jon. how didyou come to be the ceo of foria? jon: yeah so my involvement with foria, asi mentioned, my partner matthew, you know, he kind of came up with this idea and startedto think about how he would move the idea forward into more of a business venture. andthis was a couple of years ago, now, and right around that time i was, you know, i’d beenundergoing some interesting life evaluation processes. had gone through a divorce aboutfour or five years ago, and was really starting to think about how i wanted to show up inthe world, and what was important to me. and as part of that i started to identify largergoals that i have in terms of really wanting
to make a difference in the world and in people’slives, especially as it pertained to my business activities. and so before i used to thinkabout things more from a filter of okay is this business or is this charity or philanthropy. a few years ago i really revisited those questionsin a deeper way and ultimately decided that i wanted to spend the majority of my timedoing something that i believed had the opportunity to make a meaningful difference in people’slives. so i started to put that message out into my community and sort of wind down someof the other business ventures that i’d been involved with. and it was right aroundthat time that matthew was looking for a business partner who could help him kind of implementand execute on the vision behind foria. and
so we got connected and started spending timetogether and discussing this. and whereas before my general goal of wanting to do somethingthat mattered to folks was just that, it was a general intention. when i heard about what matthew was thinkingas it pertained to this, it really crystallized for me and i moved into action around it andhave been, you know, completely committed to this for the last couple of years now.so it’s been a big shift. i mean my background, you know, was not previously in the cannabisindustry. i had a number of different entrepreneurial ventures that were primarily involving realestate, law and finance. a lot of which actually, you know, will serve in this venture as well.but not sort of in a very direct fashion in
terms of the industry. matthew: now digging into foria, what kindof experiences do you hear coming back anecdotally from customers that have tried it? are youhearing certain things over and over? jon: yeah we do, and you know this reallyis, you know, what we’re oriented around is wellness and helping people who are lookingfor some kind of enhanced experience, you know, reconnection to self, a deeper connectionto partners. and you know, the thing that keeps coming back to us, i mean, we receiveinquiries both email correspondence, people contact us from really all around the world,both curious and wanting to see what might be possible for them with respect to foria.and for the folks who have had the benefit
of using it at this point we’ve receiveda lot of gratitude frankly for bringing this to the world. we talked about some of the primary benefitsearlier, but the thing that people have really expressed to us is really just the… forsome people it’s a reduction in pain that they experience. and so people that have hadeither painful or dryness in terms of their sexual lives, you know, have received benefitfrom using foria. certainly an enhancement of sensation, kind of a deeper experienceof their pleasure, of their orgasm. that’s something that people frequently report tous. you know, i think one of the things that we’re experiencing with this which is worthmentioning is that there are a lot of fda
approved drugs or other products on the marketthat address male function, sexual function or dysfunction or issues. and there reallyaren’t a lot for females that are specifically targeted to female related issues. and sothat’s something that we’re very excited about, and there’s been an extremely positivereception in the communities that we’re in the market on with respect to the factthat this is really intended for women. matthew: now cannabis in general can increaseor certain kinds of cannabis, thc people often report increase blood flow when consumingit. are you hearing reports of that, you know, increased blood flow to the female genitalarea that can be helpful for, you know, two partners involved?
jon: definitely. that’s one of the primaryexperiences of consuming foria vaginally is that there is a direct vasodilatation responsein the vagina. and there are 8,000 nerve endings in the clitoris as compared to 4,000 in apenis. and so what we’ve, you know, what we’ve come to hear and people have reportedwith us that the sense of warmth, of increased blood flow, and in some ways it’s just helpingto focus attention into that area and kind of slowing down and taking time to connectwith yourself or with a partner. that is very much a part of the foria experience. matthew: so just so listeners can visualizelet’s talk a little bit about the marination or onset and how this is actually used. canlisteners think about, you know, the foria
being applied similar timeframe as eatingan edible so somewhere between 45 minutes to maybe an hour to an hour and a half froman application on a female’s genitals to the onset? jon: yeah it does vary quite a bit or it canvary. you know we’ve had women share with us that they’ve felt sensation come on fairlyrapidly, within say five or ten minutes. and then for other folks it has been more of adelayed response, you know, as much as say 45 minutes. we haven’t heard too much beyond45 minutes to let’s say an hour. and i think what’s that due to and you know i thinkthe cannabis industry as a whole is trying to increase and improve the level of science,the rigor of scientific research and you know
clinical trials and so forth, a lot of whichare not currently available by virtue of the legal framework that we all operate in. i general i think that what we’ve observedand what people have shared with us at least anecdotally is that there are a number offactors that can really bear on the experience as a whole and certainly on the time of onset.and some of those things include the presence of other intoxicants. so for women that havehad perhaps some alcohol or other things in their system or even just other stimulation,visual. you know, if you’re in a very loud and noisy kind of chaotic environment thenit really isn’t the proper set and setting to drop into a more connected, physical, sensoryenhanced experience sexually. so it’s not
something that sort of is intended or worksvery well with a lot other things present. but if it’s really the focus is primarilyon that, and you know, there’s another set of variables that come into play which include,you know, how much sleep or where a woman is in her menstrual cycle, and kind of thepresence of a variety of different hormones. we have some, you know, kind of little tangent,but there’s people that have received a lot of benefit who are either peri or postmenopausal and sort of as the body, the female body goes through a variety of changes a lotof people have expressed that foria has helped them reconnect to parts that they’ve feltdisconnected from some things that may be shifting, you know, over time within theirbodies. but yeah the general, you know, sometimes
depending on what’s in your stomach forexample. that’s certainly one of the larger variables that’s involved with edibles inparticular, you know, what goes through the liver. and you know our product is a topical,and it’s absorbed through the vaginal membrane which has its own pathways and its own kindof metabolization and you know, how much is available into the blood stream, what’sthe efficacy. you know, it’s really kind of an interesting thing that we’re lookingat is to how much of the cannabinoid content is absorbed through which pathways. so whetherit’s vaping or smoking or ingesting orally or absorbing topically, you know, they allhave very different kind of characteristics and variables associated with them.
matthew: so you touched on food there. whatkind of information or feedback have you heard back anecdotally or otherwise about eatingcertain kinds of foods, you know, maybe high protein, high fat. how does it affect onsetof foria at all? jon: yeah i’m not comfortable taking a firmposition on that. i mean we’ve heard some things, i would say, very anecdotally. i thinkthat it’s fair to say that we would expect there to be an effect, but trying to controlfor, you know, any of these variables in particular seems like the work of, you know, clinicalresearch which is really not where we are. so i would hesitated to kind of take a strongposition on that. you know, with respect to edibles different than foria, we have heardthat, you know, having a lot of high lipid
content of a lot of fat in the system dramaticallyshifts the metabolism through the stomach. but, you know, for foria and its use, we havenot experienced or, you know, people have not shared with us too profound of a differencein experience based on food content in the stomach. matthew: now foria really isn’t psychoactiveper se is that correct? it’s more, you know, it’s consumed vaginally, but to say it’snot psychoactive maybe discounts the fact that there’s increased eroticism involvedhere. so there’s a psychoactive component that’s a result of it, but you’re notessentially feeling high in the body or head. jon: yeah. you know, it’s another one ithink that it really depends on people’s
direct experience, how they would self reporton that question, but i think that in general for folks that do consume thc through othermeans such as smoking or vaping, they don’t report the same “high†as smoking. itdoes tend to be described more as a body response than, you know, kind of a mind response. butas you allude to, you know, the real question is what does it mean to experience sensationor pleasure. is that located in the body or is that located in the mind. you know, it’sprobably beyond our pay grades for us to delve too far into that question. but i think it is important and what it speaksto for me and for us as we’re, you know, kind of presenting foria and helping peopleunderstand what it might hold for them. the
real thing that’s interesting here is thatpeople who are not traditionally cannabis smokers, let’s say, are actually curiousabout foria and the fact that it does not tend to promote the same, let’s call it,psychoactive high that smoking does. that’s actually an attractive element of foria forpeople. and we’re seeing a lot of people come to foria from a place of, you know, itried marijuana when i was younger, you know, at a different point in life and it’s justnot for me. it’s really not something i’m interested in, and if this is something thatcan help me bring my, you know, my pleasure systems back online in a more profound way,that’s something that i’m interested in. and for people who have that kind of paradigmor that curiosity and the try foria, that’s
what really interesting to them. it reallychanges and shifts the traditional notion of what cannabis may or may not hold for someone.and because of the absorbsion vaginally and sort of the different metabolization intothe body and the different pathways, and it not producing that same whatever the psychoactivehigh that someone doesn’t want or used to experience, but isn’t interested in experiencingat this point, that’s really exciting for us because it does bring someone to the worldof cannabis, you know, in a different fashion and with a specific purpose here, not theyou know, i’m just consuming this to “get highâ€. matthew: now with a product like foria thatis so unique there’s some terms that people
probably should get comfortable with. andforia’s not a sexual lubricant per se, but it’s more of a pre-lubricant. can you justkind of dive and just tell us how we should be thinking about the context of lubricationand pre-lube and sexual lubrication and so forth? jon: yeah i’m happy to try although i wouldreally defer typically to the people who are directly experiencing these things. matthew: we’re doing the best we can fortwo men talking right jon. jon: that’s right we will do the best wecan here. that’s actually an important point overall is that the things that i’m sharingare directly shared with me and with our team
by people that are using the procdut. youknow our orientation to this, as i mentioned previously, is really from a place of wantingto have a very positive and meaningful impact in people’s lives. and so that’s our mission.that’s what we’re working towards here, and we’re constantly learning and beinginformed by people who are actually using foria as to what that means. but as it pertains to your question specifically,yeah, i think that most people traditionally think of a lube or a lubricant as somethingthat they would use, you know, at the actual moment of touching, penetration, etc. foriais you know, certainly can be used in that way, but i think that the primary use thatwe’ve identified and that folks have said
works, you know, really well for them is toconsume and ingest foria, apply foria, you know, some period of time ahead of when they’reintended to introduce whatever stimulation, whether it’s self-stimulation or with apartner. you know, that they’re desiring and the reason for that is really this kindof latency or onset period for the experience or for the benefits to begin to take effect.and so whether it’s the increased blood flow or the increased tactile sensation orjust some of the mental states, you know, for folks that have consumed cannabis viasmoking and vaping, you know, the effects do tend to be more rapid in that way thanother forms of ingestion. and there is definitely some period of time to absorb into the bloodstreamand really feel the engorgement or the blood
flow begin that might come from using foria. so yeah there’s some sense of a pre-lube.you know we’re kind of creating or trying to avoid labels that come with a lot of otherassociations that really might not be applicable in our case. sometimes i’ve heard peoplerefer to it, oh that’s the weed lube. yeah okay, maybe but i don’t know what that meansto someone necessarily. that’s why there’s a really important education and awarenesspiece to what we’re doing with foria, and that’s something that we hold with a lotof integrity and are trying our best to, you know, really facilitate and spark a conversationabout wellness, about pleasure, about how plant medicines such as cannabis can intersectand sort of support body functions. you know,
if everything’s going well then the body’sdoing the magical things that it does. and if there are areas where it needs a littlesupport then you know i think that’s where foria can really assist folks. matthew: so what if i’m in a dispensaryand i decide to pick up some foria, what does it look like and how do i control the dosage?is it a spray or do you put it directly on your fingers? how does it work for most people? jon: yeah and so delivery system’s a reallyinteresting and important question. we’ve experimented with a number of different methodsand kind of conveyance systems. you know, it is a very viscus oil of analogist, as yousaid, to an mct or liquid coconut oil. and
so it does pour and kind of run, you know,in the ways that oils can. from our perspective, you know, we sell it in a spray top, and thatproduces a little bit finer of a mist and from an absorbsion standpoint that tends towork a little bit better than sort of just pouring it out of a bottle. you know, we’velooked at other things like droppers and so forth. but the spray mist is probably thebest method. it’s the one that we’ve settled on for the time being. we are looking at anumber of other potential applicator type devices and potentially some different…without going too far into the r and d side of things. there are some other products and some kindof extensions off of foria that we’re looking
at and working on, but for the moment thespray top. and what we’ve done is kind of ensure the consistency of dosage through beingable to quantify exactly how much cannabis is in each spray of that spay pump bottle.and so for example in california we’ve got a bottle that contains 2mg of thc per spray.so and then trying to draw an analogy between other, you know, thc products whether it’sa cookie or chocolate and things like that, you know, i think that the absorbsion vaginallyis a differentiator there. and if you look at other transdermal devices such as there’ssome skin patches out there and so forth. you know, if you were to eat 10mg of thc ina cookie or something like that versus to absorb it vaginally or even to smoke it. youknow, the efficacy of that dosage is different,
you know, just as between those pathways.and then as we kind of mentioned earlier it’s different from time to time even for the sameperson. so the notion of how much to use is a verypersonal question. we have kind of a suggested starting point, and i think the industry asa whole is doing a good job of kind of helping create awareness around responsible consumption.i can tell you that no one to date has used “too much†foria and had that not so greatoutcome or experience as has happened in other forms of consumption. so you know we don’tthink that we’re you know, kind of at the edge of having too much foria involved. ifanything the fact that it is an oil and creates kind of a lubricating effect, that in a wayalso governs how much you’d want to use
because at some point it’s not fun to havetoo much lubrication in any situation. matthew: good point. now i’m kind of curiouswhat the demographic is. i don’t know if you get that kind of detail, but who’s pursingforia now? is it across a wide spectrum of demographics? jon: yeah it really is. and you know, i guessthe way i’d address that is that more from an age perspective in terms of demographics.that’s the thing that we really have, you know, some optics into. there are definitelypeople kind of at the younger side of the age spectrum that have received benefit. youknow i think that tends to fit more into some kind of exploration of sexuality. you know,not so much the, you know, things aren’t
working the same as they used to type of profile.but you know certainly any number of younger 20s and 30s who are, you know, kind of ina more adventurous perhaps phase of their sexuality. so we’ve had a lot of people sharing experiencesthat are, you know, kind of in that area. and then you know, into more of a middle agedcontext, you know, the reports from people who are in their 40s, 50s, 60s, you know,tend to be more of maintaining or reconnecting with long time partners, and for whateverreasons. you know just the normal kind of vagaries of life have perhaps, you know, theirintimacy has kind of waned in some way, and you know the business of kids and careersand life and all the things that we experience.
i’m in my mid 40s and certainly have hadrelationships that over time have shifted from an intimacy perspective. i think there’sa lot of people in that demographic, if you will, that are experiencing benefit. and theneven older. there’s women who have shared with us, you know, i think the oldest personthat we have direct shared experience with was i think 79 years old which was just beautifulthing to hear about. so for women who are kind of at a more advancestage who, you know, the body just isn’t working the same at that point, and there’sa lot of differences that people are experiencing, you know, physically, hormonally and spiritually.so foria for them represents an opportunity to, like i said, reawaken or reconnect differentparts of themselves and certainly with others
as well. you know, that’s one of the thingsthat really is motivating for us is that this has the potential to help really anyone. youknow, there is not kind of ugh, it’s really not for you kind of thing. and so that’sexciting. i mean the opportunity to make a difference for a lot of people is really inspirational. matthew: it is. now can you tell me wherelisteners can find foria and approximate cost just to give them a ballpark? jon: yeah. at the moment we’re availablein the medical market in california. we’re also available in the medical and recreationalmarkets of colorado as of about a month ago. and we are actively working to get into anumber of other markets, and we expect to
do that within this year. so you know thechallenge for pretty much everyone in the industry is how to kind of make yourself,your products available in the different marketplaces given the constraints and restrictions thatwe’re all working with. that’s really a primary goal of ours. in terms of price we have two sizes of bottlesat the moment. one is a 10ml bottle which is about 10 servings, and one is a 30ml bottlewhich is about 30 servings. and pricing varies depending on the retailer and the exact market.but in general the smaller bottle retails for somewhere around $44, which would equateabout $4.50 per serving. and the larger bottle is anywhere from about $88 to $100, but that’sless than $3 per use or per serving.
matthew: now jon as we close how can listenersfind foria online? jon: yeah, so our website is www.foriapleasure.com,that’s www.foriapleasure.com and we’ve tried to kind of put as much information aswe could into the website. it’s got links to some of the reviews that have been publishedout in various media outlets. we’ve got some testimonials that are shared directlythere as well as information about the product itself and certainly where you can obtainit at the moment again in california or in colorado. matthew: jon you’ve got a great, great productwith foria i’m really excited to hear more feedback from people out there. thank youso much for coming on cannainsider today.
jon: thank you matt. it’s been really funto share this time with you, and i appreciate the opportunity. matthew: if you enjoyed the show today, pleaseconsider leaving us a review on itunes. every five star review helps us to bring the bestguests to you. learn more at www.cannainsider.com/itunes. what are the five disruptive trends that willshape the cannabis industry in the next five years? find out with your free report at www.cannainsider.com/trends.that's www.cannainsider.com/trends. have a suggestion for an awesome guest on www.cannainsider.com,email us feedback at cannainsider.com. we would love to hear from you.