But anyway, Douglas, how did your journey begin with Kyle?

So I was a junior college student in San Diego, where I'm from, and I was working in a natural health food store And at the time, a lot of my friends were pot smokers and drinking a lot of alcohol and things like that.

And neither of those approaches really helped me to relieve my anxiety.

So one day I was at the health food store and one of the natural pharmacists, as they call themselves, they probably don't anymore for legal reasons, But they were like, there's this new stuff that we got in called Kava.

And it was a little tin can of instant Kava called Kava King.

And I took it home and I took a tablespoon and mixed it with water.

And it was instantaneously very relieving to my anxiety and helped me relax.

And what about you, Douglas? Why do you continue this work?

So would you like to expand?

Yeah, well, I'm here today to stake my claim and kind of make a stand.

I feel like reverse tolerance is a way of trying to convince people or urge people who are not really feeling kava the first time they try it that, oh, this is going to take you some time to feel the effects.

You have to keep drinking it for a while before you really feel the benefits from it.

that's reverse tolerance like that's the argument that i hear over and over again um when i go to kava bars or hear people you know making a pitch about kava and i think it's a helpful tool for you know um getting people to not give up on kava.

But I don't think that it's a scientific reality.

I don't think that there's really any evidence that the longer you drink kava and the more you drink kava, the more you feel it.

Um, it's, it's, it's something that people do in research when they're trying to figure out, you know, but I, I forgot the name of it, but anyway, um, Um, yeah, so maybe,

... uh, maybe giving it too much credit?

Yeah.

Kava emerged in a very interesting way in the United States.

Um, you know, I grew up in the, in the '80s and '90s and, um, you know, anything that was even slightly psychoactive was scrutinized and, and, and kind of like blacklisted.

Um, but kava was one of the first things that came on the market.

Um, like the first time that I tried it, I bought it at a health food store, and I bought an instant kava that you just mix with water directly into, you know, from the package into a cup.

Um, and you know, it was one of the few things that you could get that actually did something.

So speaking of getting, uh, away from that burdensome regulation and, uh, growing the industry, uh, what are some of the things you're most proud of that the Kava Coalition has accomplished in advocating for this consumer freedom?