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Chiang Mai’s Maejo University has succeeded in creating the first Thai-bred, industrial-grade medical cannabis, giving Thailand the distinction of becoming the first country in Asia to develop a proprietary breed of the plant for medical use, a government official reports.

Anutin Charnvirakul, a deputy prime minister and public health minister, made the announcement while visiting Maejo’s Natural Agriculture Research and Development Centre this weekend.

“This project is a collaboration between Maejo University, the Government Pharmaceutical Organisation [GPO], and the Department of Medical Science since June,” Anutin told Asia One on Saturday. “We expect to deliver 2.4 tonnes of dried cannabis to the GPO to produce cannabis-based drugs by February next year.”

Anutin said the accomplishment has been long time coming thanks to the hard work of the university’s researchers, who have spent countless hours developing organic, pesticide-free means of outdoor growing that the school hopes could potentially be used in small, community-based cannabis farms sometime in the near future.

“We aim to perfect a technique where a household can grow six cannabis plants in their yard and use them safely for medical purposes,” Anutin said. “Maejo’s breed is strong and of high quality that contains both cannabidiol and tetrahydrocannabinol, two natural compounds that have medical benefits in the preferred quantity.”

Dr. Anat Tancho, director of the Natural Agriculture Research and Development Centre, said that Maejo’s cultivation plans hinge on the development of an ideal growing environment in order to refine the quality and efficacy of the cannabis grown on site.

“We follow the standards of IFOAM [International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements] and USDA [U.S. Department of Agriculture] organic standard,” said Dr. Anat. “Moreover, since marijuana is still a narcotic plant, we also strictly adhere to the GSP [Good Security Practices] to ensure full compliance with the law.”

Thailand is quickly emerging as the most cannabis-friendly country in Asia, and has been gradually loosening restrictions surrounding the drug for some time. A recent proposed law would allow Thais to grow up to six plants at home for medical consumption and allow plants to be sold to licensed institutions.

“The principle is for medical use. You can have it at home for ailments, but not smoke it on the street,” senior Bhumjaithai Party legislator Supachai Jaisamut told Reuters earlier this month.

Recreational cannabis remains strictly prohibited in Thailand. Penalties for possession can range from a heavy fine to up to a decade in prison.

When you consume cannabis, how often do you think about its flavour?

Sure, most may take a whiff at a dispensary to help the decision-making, but is it the main reason one reaches for the bud when it is time to toke?

I imagine the answer for many would be no.

But for a handful of industry professionals, they are staking their careers on a passion for the rich flavours and smells cannabis can produce — and hoping others can be persuaded to feel the same way.

From cannabis sommelier courses to new “elevated” dining experiences, they are taking cannabis and flavour to the next level.

Greencamp spoke to a few of these canna-experts about what weed tastes like, about their passion for cannabis’ flavour, and how it can truly make for a new and fulfilling experience.

Cannabis sommeliers

A cannabis sommelier is someone who introduces another to the world of cannabis and is an expert in its qualities, breeding and history.

While wine sommeliers have existed for quite some time, cannabis sommeliers are a fairly new breed who are just starting to get their footing, aided by courses such as those offered by Vancouver-based CannaReps, which claims to offer the first cannabis sommelier course in Canada.

Aldolfo Gonzalez started the company with co-founder Enid Chen in 2017, as a way to empower cannabis professionals with more knowledge of the plant and its culture and history.

“Basically, what we do is bring people into a classroom and allow them to experience [cannabis] first hand from a physical analysis,” he said.

Gonzalez says his courses, which are currently available in two different levels with a third that will be introduced soon, present cannabis along with scientific research so participants can learn how to distinguish different strains from their look, feel and smell, as well as know the history and culture behind those strains.

“Understanding plant varieties and how that contributes to different flavours, aromas, and which one a particular individual enjoys, that’s the name of the game,” he said.

To Gonzalez, cannabis isn’t just for getting high, but is an art form in itself — and its breeders are the artists.

He brings up DJ Short, who Gonzalez says spent a decade creating the Blueberry cannabis strain, which was released in 1978.

“He is a Picasso and nobody has recognized him as such, nobody has paid him any money for making it,” he said. “In most parts of the world, traditional growers and breeders are looked at as criminals and something that needs to be stamped out.”

Gonzalez tries to build an appreciation for strains’ history in his courses, which he asserts helps distinguish great cannabis from mediocre.

“When the plant is happy, it is like, ‘Oh my lord, this is what it can be,”’ he said. “[Breeders] treat the plant like a living creature that has some level of sensitivity. They give it everything that that genetic desires for a long time, for thousands of years of evolution.”

Gonzalez says that the “best plants in the world” have eight percent terpenes, 32 percent THC or CBD.

“It is a different animal,” he said.

New ways to appreciate the plant

Once you’ve experienced good, flavourful cannabis, Gonzalez says it is hard to go back to run-of-the-mill buds after that. It will make you notice the richness of the cannabis’ smell and flavour, and its subtle notes, such as pine tree or lemon.

Gonzalez says his students are now typically from large cannabis corporations who he helps gain a new angle on the plant that they can use to aid in the storytelling for their brands.

The appreciation for cannabis is gaining momentum. The Canadian Association of Professional Sommeliers (CAPS) is eyeing cannabis as part of their program, according to Gonzalez, and organized a series of events for the first two months after legalization in Canada last October.

Other cannabis sommelier courses are opening up, as well.

Denver-based Trichome Institute offers “Interprening” courses, meaning to “interpret terpenes.”

Terpenes are compounds in the cannabis plant that give it aroma, which can vary from pineapple to blueberry or a “skunk” smell, and is said to influence the drug’s psychoactive effects. When terpenes allegedly work with other cannabis components in a synergistic manner, it is called the “entourage effect.”

The same terpenes that exist in cannabis are also present in different foods and flowers, such as limonene in citrus fruits.

“Elevated dining”

Some are taking advantage of this connection between cannabis and food to enhance the flavour of both, in what is known as “elevated dining.”

These cannabis dining experiences are popping up in cities both in the U.S. and Canada.

The premise is typically the same. A group of diners, sometimes strangers, sign up for a chef’s cannabis-infused tasting menu that involves multiple courses.

One chef who has spearheaded the new trend that pairs cannabis with flavour is Travis Petersen, AKA The Nomad Cook.

Petersen, who had a stint on Canadian TV cooking competition Top Chef, says he started his cooking series on April 20 (4/20, get it?) last year, and since then has served over 2,500 cannabis-infused dinners from coast-to-coast in Canada, as well as in New York, San Francisco, Seattle, and Portland.

Petersen says those who partake in the dinners are largely the “canna-curious,” or people who are not heavy users; 35 percent of his diners are first-time users.

“I would have assumed most of my guests would have been young 20-year-old males that smoke a lot of cannabis but my average age is 37 and 58 percent female,” he said.

Food that opens the mind

Petersen infuses his food with THC and CBD, psychoactive and non-psychoactive components of cannabis, respectively, as well as terpenes, which he says “opens people’s minds” to new flavours and smells that “accentuate and highlight” each course.

A terpene he often uses to start off his meals is myrcene with its earthy taste, which he combines with a canopy once guests enter that “therapeutic effect of being hungry, the munchy feeling.”

Then he uses limonene in the first course to give guests a boost of energy and “get the conversation going,” and linalool (which is also found in lavender) in deserts to calm and relax guests.

“I find the terpenes really wake up the palate and bring it to attention after a bit, it really awakens the mouth,” he said.

To not overwhelm newcomers to cannabis, he offers diners a scale of 1-5 for dosing strength, with 10 mg being the dose he chooses for the whole dinner for someone new to cannabis.

Petersen says that cannabis-infused dining is a “new frontier in the culinary world” and thinks it will only get bigger. To help facilitate this growth, he has launched the Culinary Cannabis Association, which he says is the first governing body to certify and train chefs on how to use cannabis properly.

“This is not a niche fad that is popular now because cannabis is legal,” he said. “There are chefs popping up all over the country doing this.”

These include other companies such as The Herbal Chef run by Chris Sayegh, or Altered Plates, run by brother and sister Holden Jagger and Rachel Burkons.

The National Restaurant Association recently released a report that showed 77 percent of chefs feel food infused with cannabis and CBD are the top two trends in the industry for 2019.

Cannabis and wine flavour pairings

However, Gonzalez says that pairing the plant with food is not a traditional way to experience it, and often infused dining experiences hide cannabis’ flavour, making its inclusion mostly about getting high.

He says a cannabis sommelier would also never pair cannabis with alcohol because their job is to bring someone into the world of cannabis safely — making alcohol and its risky effects when combined with cannabis not appropriate.

While Petersen doesn’t serve alcohol at his dinners, another chef, Chris Klugman, does bring the two together because he says it can reveal new flavours that wouldn’t be possible alone.

“The terpenes, because of their interaction with the flavour of the wine, change the flavour of the wine,” he said. “We’ve had a lot of fun playing with this.”

Klugman, a trained wine and cannabis sommelier who took Gonzalez’s CannaRep courses, runs the Paintbox restaurant and catering company in Toronto. He has also recently begun experimenting with elevated dining experiences with his new brand, High Flights.

In his multi-course dinners, he plays with different flavour combos between food, cannabis and wine or beer, such as mixing sativa-dominant White Shark with the Ontario champagne blend Westcott Brilliant to fill out the middle palate of the wine.

Like Gonzalez, Klugman agrees that infusing food with cannabis is not the way to get the most of either flavour, but instead his guests “nose” weed with a big whiff or vaporize it, which he says is a great way to get cannabis’ flavour.

“[Combining cannabis with food] is super fascinating, and when it works, it is really crazy good,” Klugman said. “It gives a new experience to the traditional multi-course tasting menu and gives me a chance to play with some of the tricks and practices that are common in molecular gastronomy, which makes it more magical.”

These tricks include serving a lavender cheesecake enclosed with a lid and filled with cannabis smoke, which Klugman says smokes the cake.

He says that cannabis is a natural for pairing with food and wine because of their shared terpenes, but the same terpene can be perceived differently in cannabis because of how it interacts with the plant’s other components. Cannabis’ different terpenes can interact with each other to give the drug a wide variety of flavours, so your cannabis may end up tasting like a wedding cake, for instance.

“There are a lot of relationships on the flavour and aroma basis,” he said.

The first cannabis-based medicine for childhood epilepsy is expected to be available soon in the UK and the rest of Europe after its UK manufacturer, GW Pharmaceuticals, received the green light from European authorities.

Cambridge-based GW said the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and the European commission had approved Epidyolex for seizures associated with two rare and severe forms of epilepsy, Lennox-Gastaut syndrome (LGS) and Dravet syndrome for patients aged two years and older.

The approval means the medicine – a plant-derived, strawberry-flavoured cannabidiol oral solution that is taken twice a day and lacks the “high” associated with cannabis – can be launched across Europe. Up to 50,000 children and young adults in Europe have one of the two syndromes, including about 10,000 in the UK.

GW’s chief operating officer, Chris Tovey, said the company was in discussions with the UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) about making the drug available on the NHS. GW is in parallel discussions in other European countries. The drug is already on the market in the US, where about 15,000 young people have been treated.

Tovey said: “The feedback [in the US] has been incredibly positive.” He said he was very optimistic that Nice would agree to fund Epidyolex on the NHS. “We are hoping for a relatively rapid decision from Nice and we are hoping to make it available for UK patients in the next couple of months.”

However, Nice has turned down Sativex, GW’s cannabis-based medicine for multiple sclerosis, on the grounds of its high price, to the dismay of patients and campaigners.

Justin Gover, GW’s chief executive, said: “The approval of Epidyolex marks a significant milestone, offering patients and their families the first in a new class of epilepsy medicines and the first and only EMA-approved CBD [cannabidiol] medicine to treat two severe and life-threatening forms of childhood-onset epilepsy.”

Many patients with LGS or Dravet suffer multiple seizures a day and do not respond to many of the other available treatments. The two syndromes have high mortality rates and many patients die before they reach their early 20s.

When combined with other anti-epileptic therapies, Epidyolex significantly reduced the frequency of seizures in patients with LGS and Dravet syndrome. The most common side effects include sleepiness, decreased appetite, diarrhoea, pyrexia (fever), fatigue and vomiting.

More than 150 patients have already been treated with the medicine in the UK under compassionate use or as part of an early access programme. “We know the families are desperate,” Tovey said.

A change in UK law last year meant medicinal cannabis can be prescribed legally. The change was made after the mother of Billy Caldwell, who has treatment-resistant epilepsy, publicly defied the authorities to bring cannabis oil into the UK.

Doctors have been reluctant to prescribe cannabis-based medicines in the UK, however, because of the lack of clinical trial evidence of its benefits and safety. This could change after the European approval of Epidyolex.

Isabella Brambilla, the chair of the Dravet Syndrome European Federation, said: “We are very happy that patients will now have access to a much-needed new treatment option, and one routed through a rigorous clinical trials programme and licensed by the EMA.”

Elinor Ben-Menachem, professor of neurology and epilepsy at the University of Gothenburg’s Sahlgren Academy, said: “LGS and Dravet syndrome are two of the most severe and difficult-to-treat forms of childhood-onset epilepsy, with few patients achieving adequate seizure control. The EMA approval of Epidyolex will bring hope to patients and families, with the potential to better control seizures and improve quality of life.”

GW has also filed the drug for approval in Switzerland and Israel. It is conducting further clinical trials on the treatment of other forms of epilepsy with the medicine.

As more investors in marijuana stocks turn to Latin America, Colombia has churned out more than 200 cultivation licenses to marijuana companies doing business there. But those companies need to make their way through a labyrinthine approval process before they can legally sell any product domestically or abroad.

After that, the process of actually exporting cannabis requires a lot of changes to meet requirements of regulators and authorities on both ends of the deal, and even the airline flying the products itself.

Big Canadian pot producers like Canopy Growth (CGC), Tilray (TLRY) and Aurora Cannabis (ACB) have scattered their investments across Colombia and the rest of the region. Many marijuana companies there already have licenses for cultivation, processing or other activities. However, companies that want to grow and sell their own cannabis also have to get their strains registered by the government.

"It is not the same as having a license in Canada," Alfredo Pascual, international analyst at the industry publication Marijuana Business Daily, said in an interview. "Having a license in Colombia is like, 'OK, you're good to play the game now. But now comes the hard part.' "

License, Registration, Ph.D. Defense

Marijuana companies can pursue licensing and registration simultaneously. But to get a strain registered, those companies first have to register a seed bank, or, essentially, a collection of seeds. The company then selects a strain from that seed bank to go through a government review process. In that process the government evaluates whether a company can grow that strain consistently. It can take around six months.

"As one of my team members described it, it's like defending my Ph.D. thesis all over again," said David Gordon, chief corporate officer of PharmaCielo, a cannabis producer that operates in Colombia. "You had a stack of paper and six months' growing of each one. It had probably taken two or three years to develop each one."

If a company passes the government's review, it gets clearance to register the strain in a national database. Once a company registers a strain, following a few minor, administrative steps, it receives a resolution from regulators that permits them to grow and sell cannabis products based on that strain.

However, companies still have to follow a quota if they want to make and sell psychoactive cannabis products, defined as those that carry more than 1% THC. What's more, the retail framework for selling cannabis products still isn't fully defined.

Even though companies play up their licensing in news releases, as of Sept. 18 only eight marijuana companies operating in Colombia have strains registered, according to Colombian government data. Among those companies are PharmaCielo, Clever Leaves, Khiron Life Sciences and Santa Marta Golden Hemp, which is majority owned by Avicanna, headquartered in Canada.

'Biggest Hurdle' For Marijuana Stocks In Colombia

"It's the biggest hurdle by far to be a real player in the country," GMP Securities analyst Robert Fagan said of the requirements to get a business fully up and running. "The cost to get these licenses is meaningless. Once you're producing, there's thousands and thousands of hectares of available land that can be readily converted."

Colombia also mandates that any licensed cannabis business source at least 10% of its dried THC flower material, or dry buds, from small-to-midsize cultivators. That is, farms with up to half an hectare of land.

Colombia legalized cannabis partly to lift smaller farmers and indigenous communities out of the illegal drug market. That market had helped fund the nation's 50-year conflict between communist guerrillas and the government.

But materials from small cultivators don't always meet the standards required to sell in a region like the EU. That can make using those materials more complicated for bigger producers.

"I've heard companies saying to me one of the easiest things to do is to buy that 10% ... to comply with the law and burn it," Pascual said. "Because I don't have a headache if I do that."

Julian Wilches, Clever Leaves' co-founder and a onetime drug policy director with Colombia's justice ministry, said he'd never heard of that practice. PharmaCielo said it had heard "rumor" of it but would never do it itself. Avicanna did not respond to a request for comment.

Pascual also noted that Colombia's industry is young. Few companies are fully operating. Bringing smaller farmers into the fold could take time. But it's also not uncommon for speculators to swoop in and apply for licenses, then flip their company and that license to bigger investors for a quick buck, he said.

Acrobatics, Aerobatics To Export Cannabis

Clever Leaves in February said it received the OK to export cannabis into Canada from Colombia for scientific analysis. Wilches said that on Aug. 1, Clever Leaves had shipped hemp oil to the United Kingdom for commercial purposes. Also in August, PharmaCielo said it made its first commercial shipment of CBD to the Switzerland headquarters of Creso Pharma, a cannabis company. PharmaCielo agreed to acquire Creso in June.

But those shipments out of Colombia required some logistical acrobatics, executives say.

Wilches said they required assurances that Clever Leaves had the quality standards, compliance and production capacity to fly anything to another country at all. For its first export to the U.K.— part of a larger planned shipment of 5,000 small bottles of its hemp oil, in 10 to 30 milligram doses, boxed up and on pallets — it also required several months of meetings. Meetings took place with the minister of international trade, Colombia's tax authorities and narcotics police, with the airlines and police at the airport from which the airline would depart, he said.

Vacations, Layovers

Then, after all that effort, when the departure date arrived for its first shipment, the official in charge of the airport was on vacation, he said. While she was away, another senior official there told them he wouldn't sign off on the shipment unless trade authorities confirmed it had the right tax classification. So the company had to go back to the international trade ministry for confirmation, then back to the airport.

Wilches said that shipment to the U.K. had stopped in a different country on the way. He wouldn't disclose where. The airline, he said, wanted to keep a low profile.

"They don't want to have everybody knocking on the door asking for exports before knowing the clients," he said in a phone interview.

Wilches said Clever Leaves considers both direct flights and flights with layovers for exports. "In any case, we have opted for airlines with experience in the transportation of controlled substances and we transport in compliance with applicable law," he said over email.

EU Certification

For the shipment to Canada, Clever Leaves flew its cannabis over on a single plane, Kyle Detwiler, CEO of Northern Swan Holdings, said earlier this year. Northern Swan is a majority owner of Clever Leaves.

Detwiler declined to offer further details. But he likened the task to shipping a substance like morphine. He said there are different protocols for cargo manifests, and plans to be ironed out with customs and regulators.

Gordon said PharmaCielo sent its CBD over to Switzerland via plane as well. Switzerland permits the purchase of some low-THC products. But he also said flight arrangements were far more complicated than expected.

"They had to determine, 'What is the shipping route?'" Gordon said. "Does it ship through a country that accepts the legality, if you will, of the product or not?"

To sell in the EU, any facilities producing cannabis need certification that it meets the bloc's standards for so-called good manufacturing practices. Only a handful of marijuana companies are able to do that right now.

Marijuana Stocks Give Peace A Chance

Meanwhile, Colombia's peace process, Pascual said, was still very much a process. Both sides of the former war vs. insurgents accuse the other of failing to stick to the agreement. The ELN guerrilla group is still active in the nation. FARC laid down their weapons following the 2016 peace deal. But a former leader late last month issued a call to return to arms.

Some observers downplayed the provocation, saying most FARC soldiers are abiding by the peace agreement. Others say investors might not consider some pockets of the nation safe for investment. As with the U.S. — where the illicit market and a cash-based legal market present their own risks — security is essential. The Colombian government requires the cannabis industry to keep security tight at facilities, Gordon said.

At PharmaCielo's plant nursery, security officers inspect vehicles on the way in and the way out. The perimeter is fenced and monitored by staff around the clock. The facility has a drone, which Gordon said was not a routine part, but still a part, of surveillance.

"It gets used," Gordon said, adding: "It's in the tool kit."

New Frontier Data, the global authority in data, analytics and business intelligence for the cannabis industry, in partnership with Global Cannabinoids, a leading producer, manufacturer and distributor of American-Grown Hemp-Derived Cannabinoids in the U.S., releases The U.S. Cannabis Report 2019 Industry Outlook. The report examines U.S. cannabis industry forecasts and trends, including industry revenue projections, illicit market sizing, cannabis consumer behavior, and potential interaction with the opioids market in the U.S.

Key findings include:

• Total legal sales of cannabis in current legal states are projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 14% over the next six years, to reach nearly $30 billion by 2025
• Annual sales of medical cannabis are projected to grow at a 17% CAGR through 2025, to an estimated $13.1 billion by 2025; adult-use sales are projected to grow at a 16% CAGR, to $16.6 billion
• An estimated 38.4 million U.S. adults consume cannabis at least once annually, from either a legal or illicit source
• 36% of cannabis consumers report using cannabis daily, and 59% use cannabis at least once a week
• People between the ages of 25 and 44 comprise 45% of cannabis consumers

"We tend to be cautious, if not conservative in our projections, adhering to very rigorous data sourcing and data modeling protocols, so it is significant that we raised our 2025 forecast in U.S. legal sales to $30 billion. Foreign investment into the U.S. cannabis industry remains strong and domestic consumption continues to rise, especially as new states legalize. That said, it is critical for stakeholders to understand how regulatory uncertainty, lack of accepted standards, and international market pressures may have a material and lasting economic impact in the currently flourishing U.S. cannabis market," said New Frontier Data Founder and CEO Giadha Aguirre de Carcer. "Whether an operator, researcher, or investor, I would encourage those interested in expanding their understanding of the domestic cannabis market, to also look at New Frontier Data's Canadian and Global reports, as market dynamics, trends and driving forces are beginning to cross borders."

Visit https://newfrontierdata.com/UScannabis2019 to download the report.

About New Frontier Data:

New Frontier Data is an independent, technology-driven analytics company specializing in the cannabis industry. It offers vetted data, actionable business intelligence and risk management solutions for investors, operators, researchers and policymakers. New Frontier Data's reports and data have been cited in over 80 countries around the world to inform industry leaders. Founded in 2014, New Frontier Data is headquartered in Washington, D.C. with additional offices in Denver, CO, and London, U.K.

New Frontier Data does not take a position on the merits of cannabis legalization. Rather, its mission and mandate are to inform cannabis-related policy and business decisions through rigorous, issue-neutral and comprehensive analysis of the legal cannabis industry worldwide. For more information about New Frontier Data, please visit: http://www.NewFrontierData.com.

Imagine looking for a marijuana-related job and then getting ready for your interview on an app?

It's possible now! A Las Vegas man co-founded an app called Can-Ed to help you learn more about the multi-billion dollar industry and how to land the gig you want.

Jason Sturstman did not want to be too blunt but tells13 Action News not everyone can work in the green industry because working in a dispensary requires a lot of knowledge.

“Extremely difficult and competitive," Sturstman says.

That's why he co-created Can-Ed; it's an app first of its kind, he claims it will help you get educated with certified courses.

"'[It will help with] how to get a job in the cannabis industry. The neat thing too is, you flip your phone to the side and then get [watch] some great classes," Sturstman says.

After watching several video lessons, you then take the quizzes, Sturstman says, will guarantee you a certificate to work in the cannabis industry."

The entrepreneur and marijuana advocate believes that “education and networking” are the two ways to get a job in the cannabis industry.

He believes an effective worker needs to be able to communicate and understand what the rules are in Nevada, and the science behind the plant and the various products.

One local business that favors the app is Acres Dispensary.

Nate Hinckley is the assistant manager, he admits to 13 Action News most job applicants don't have the knowledge required.

"The need for personal sales experience is huge but finding a person that knows how to geek-out on the science end of it as well as enjoys the sales aspect of it,” Hinckley says.

Hinckley prefers his employees to be able to know how to serve different clients who all shop with different needs.

"From medical all the way to someone who's recreational," Hinckley says. He hopes the app helps the community and future job applicants to get well informed.

Epidiolex, the first cannabis-based medication approved by the US Food and Drug Administration, is now available by prescription in all 50 states.

Can-ed has several features, it's not only for job-seekers. It recommends ways parents can talk to their children, depending on their age, about being a cannabis user.

"It provides you all the information about marijuana science, how the products affect you, maybe you just want a little bit of background on some of the compliances,” Sturstman says.

He too hopes the Can-Ed helps get the right information out as there are already too many misconceptions about the plant and its use.

Can-Ed can be downloaded by iPhone and Android users on the app store.