At CannMed 2025, our conversation with Michael “Big Mike” Straumietis of Advanced Nutrients opened with laughter and camaraderie. He was fresh off a transformation—“Lost 20 pounds,” he noted casually—but it was his scientific passion that shone. “We believe in science. Science reveals the truth, and this is the brain trust of cannabis,” he said, underscoring why Advanced Nutrients continues to sponsor the event year after year as a forum for serious research and innovation.

Big Mike’s eyes lit up when he spoke of genetics seminars and new discoveries. His team—people like Carl Rabbit and Michael Peterson—are mining the cannabis genome for traits lost through feminization. “Bring them back … We’ve been discriminated against,” he quipped about male plants, spotlighting how ancient male genetics are being reintegrated to reclaim diversity and resilience in modern strains.

Nutrients: The Final Piece of the Puzzle

Despite decades of evolution in cultivation technology, Big Mike framed nutrients as the amplifier, not the initiator. “Genetics first… then environment, cultivators, and then nutrients,” he explained. When cues hit that nutrient system, yield and quality depend on precision, not guesswork. It’s a credo born of decades of underground and legal cultivation experience.

The countdown is on for Advanced Nutrients’ 8th-generation nutrient line—an innovation three years in the making and launching in early 2025. Big Mike called it: “a totally different beast … we’re already working on our ninth generation.” The two‑part powdered system (Prime & Push) simplifies feeding while driving fuller cycles—up to six per year—and dramatically boosting terpene output thanks to SB1, their new biostimulant. Field trials report terpene increases from ~1.5% to as high as 6%.

Advanced Nutrients now supports growers globally with translated feeding charts and regional guidance—recently launching Mandarin and Vietnamese versions of its website to reach wider audiences. The updated Cultivator Series Base also includes pharmaceutical-grade micronutrients like premium chelated iron, reflecting their insistence on lab-quality inputs at scale.

AI as a Cultivation Catalyst

When asked about tech at CMB New York, Big Mike referenced tools like AlphaFold: software revolutionizing plant genomics and redesigning nutritional approaches through AI. “What was taking years? Now they take minutes,” he said. He sees AI’s pace outpacing Moore’s Law—doubling computing power every seven months, steadily compressing innovation timelines.

Speaking to Growers Without the Jargon

Big Mike strikes a rare balance between science and storytelling. Simple observations—“lost 20 pounds,” “clothes fit better”—humanize the high-stakes world of industrial cannabis farming. Sponsorships, seminars, and media partnerships are vehicles for putting science front and center. “If someone claims to be a master grower, we’ll have a test that tells you exactly where they stand,” he remarked, describing upcoming certification tools aimed at raising industry standards.

For Big Mike, success is ultimately about maximizing outcomes. He often warns of the hidden costs in choosing low‑quality nutrients over premium formulas—emphasizing ROI and Total Cost of Ownership over short‑term savings. His advice to growers is clear: choose nutrition backed by data or pay for it later.

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In a special edition of the Business of Cannabis Podcast, we go from ‘anecdote to evidence’ with Dr Anne Katrin Schlag, Head of Research and Interim CEO at Drug Science, and Graham Woodward, Chief Operating Officer at Releaf.

Together, they explore how the UK can move from anecdotal patient stories to robust, real-world evidence, and why this shift is vital for expanding safe, trusted access to cannabis-based medicines.

One of the key challenges in cannabis-based medicine is how to transition from impactful but anecdotal patient stories, to robust evidence that policymakers, clinicians, and regulators recognise and trust. 

In her role with Drug Science, Anne has played a key role in building the evidence base for medical cannabis, turning lived experience into real-world data, and helping ensure patients’ voices are heard where it matters the most. 

Drug Science’s T21 patient registry (formerly known as Project Twenty21) was the UK’s first observational medical cannabis registry, with around 5,000 patients enrolled over the last five years. Anne and colleagues have now published numerous publications demonstrating the real-world evidence for the safety and efficacy of medical cannabis in a range of conditions, as well as other outcomes such as reductions in the use of opioid medications.

In this conversation, Graham and Anne unpack how clinics like Releaf are investing in quality-of-life surveys and data-driven patient care.

They discuss the importance of using validated and standardised screening tools across clinics in adding to the clinical credibility of this evidence and whether more solid evidence can finally open doors with regulators and the wider healthcare system.

“I’d like to see different providers collect the same data, this would give us a huge database which, for us as researchers, is very exciting,” Anne says. 

The conversation also explores the barriers patients continue to face in accessing medical cannabis, such as cost and a lack of education and awareness among prescribers and the general public, as well as what can be done to address this.  

Graham and Anne discuss how engagement with policy makers and key decision-makers is key to making these medicines more widely available on the NHS, while highlighting the value in combining scientific evidence with patient stories to drive wider acceptance among the general public. 

“In addition to the science, patient stories carry a lot of power to change the narrative,” says Anne.

While RCTs are important, they are not the full picture. Regulators need to recognise patient-reported outcomes and real-world data for medical cannabis as not just anecdotal but scientific evidence that could shape the future of medicine. 

She adds: “If we would have waited for randomised control trials before introducing [penicillin], millions of people would have died.” 

For anyone interested in how data and patient outcomes can unlock the next stage of UK medical cannabis, this is a conversation not to miss. Listen to the full interview here 

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