CHICAGO — Sept. 7, 2025 — Former President Donald Trump says he’s “looking at reclassification” of marijuana under federal law, a move that could unlock billions for the U.S. cannabis economy but leave legalization stuck in legal limbo. The potential shift from Schedule I to Schedule III under the Controlled Substances Act would remove crushing tax burdens on cannabis businesses, expand research opportunities, and make the industry more appealing to mainstream investors. But critics warn: it still wouldn’t legalize cannabis nationwide.

In this week’s Cannabis Legalization News, hosts Tom and Miggy unpack what Trump’s weed move to Schedule III really means — and Canadian cannabis lawyer Harrison Jordan joins to explain what the U.S. can learn from Canada’s messy five-year experiment with nationwide legalization.

💵 Trump’s Rescheduling Plan

Trump told reporters: “We’re looking at reclassification and we’ll make a determination over the next — I would say over the next few weeks, and that determination hopefully will be the right one.”

Moving cannabis to Schedule III would:

• End IRS 280E tax penalties, letting companies deduct ordinary expenses.

• Make federally approved cannabis research more accessible.

• Lower the risk profile for investors and banks.

But it would not:

• Legalize adult-use nationwide.

• Permit interstate cannabis commerce.

• Deliver expungement or broad criminal justice relief.

The National Sheriffs’ Association continues to oppose reform, insisting marijuana has a “high abuse potential.”

👀 Kellyanne Conway’s Cannabis Pivot

In a twist, Marijuana Moment reports that Kellyanne Conway has emerged as Trump’s biggest pro-cannabis advocate in his inner circle. Sources suggest Conway has been quietly pushing the former president toward rescheduling — proof that cannabis reform has entered the political mainstream.

🩺 Ben Carson Revives “Crime” Argument

Meanwhile, Ben Carson argued in Fox News that easing cannabis restrictions will worsen crime in U.S. cities. The former HUD Secretary’s commentary highlights how prohibitionist talking points remain influential, even as polls show a strong majority of Americans support legalization.

🌿 Texas Hemp Ban Dies in the Legislature

In Texas, a controversial hemp ban bill that threatened to shut down shops selling THC gummies, flower, and vapes has collapsed. Politico reports that lawmakers backed down under pressure from retailers and business groups.

But The Texas Tribune notes new restrictions remain: tighter age limits, stiffer penalties, and the promise of more legislative fights in 2026.

🚨 Washington State Raid

The Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board, alongside Tacoma Police, raided the “Red Barn Trading Post” in Pierce County, seizing nearly 128 pounds of cannabis flower, 62 pounds of concentrates, 1,900 assorted products, and juvenile plants. Two individuals were arrested for unlawful distribution and possession with intent to distribute.

🎖️ MAPS Launches Veteran PTSD Cannabis Study

After years of pushback from the FDA, MAPS has launched a long-awaited Phase 2 trial studying smoked cannabis for PTSD in U.S. veterans. Backed by a $12.9 million grant, the study will enroll 320 veterans and marks a turning point in federally recognized cannabis research.

🇳🇱 Dutch Coffeeshops Ordered to Sell Legal Hash

The Netherlands has tightened its cannabis pilot program: DutchNews reports that coffeeshops in 10 municipalities must now sell only domestically grown, regulated hash. Critics argue that Moroccan hash — a consumer favorite — cannot be replicated, raising fears that the black market will expan.

🍁 What the U.S. Can Learn from Canada

Guest Harrison Jordan of Substance Law joined the show to share lessons from Canada’s legalization:

• The black market never disappeared.

• Craft growers were squeezed by corporate giants.

• Overregulation stifled innovation.

• Medical cannabis access shrank after adult-use was legalized.

“In many ways, Canada rushed the rollout and created an overregulated mess,” Jordan warned. “The U.S. can avoid repeating our mistakes.”

📬 Get weekly updates in your inbox: https://bit.ly/3VEn9vu

⚖️ Need cannabis legal help? Visit: https://cannabisindustrylawyer.com 

Transcript of Trump’s weed move podcast

Show Introduction & Newsletter Signup

Welcome to Cannabis Legalization News. My name’s Tom. You can find me [email protected]. It is on loop. I have to turn it off myself. And if you would like to get all of these new stories emailed to you every week, there’s a QR code on your TV right now that you can scan and sign up for our newsletter.

We have eight stories and a guest, the guest is going to be interesting because we will be discussing what we can learn. ’cause so much of this is about Schedule three and Trump, and what’s the federal policy gonna be? Everybody cares about what the federal policy is gonna be   as a result of that. It is our lead story.

Top Stories: Federal Policy Updates

Our top three lead stories all have to do with federal policy. There’s Kellyann Conway, there’s Ben Carson, and also a Yahoo Finance story about Donald Trump moving it to Schedule three. These are all the things that are quite salient right now in the cannabis space, if you would like to get these articles emailed to you, easiest way to do it is scan the QR code right there.

Let’s bring on MGI and do our news summary for the week. That was September 7th, 2025 and Canada Legalization News.

What up buddy? What up? Happy

Sunday.

Happy Sunday. I have a little swag right here and everybody’s like, oh my gosh. Yeah. It was the Marigold Festival over in Pekin, Illinois. It’s still going on right now. It’s beautiful out there in, in Pekin, Illinois today, by the way.

Love you peaking. Fuck

yes. Oh yeah. And so the Marigold Festival is, it broke me.

It was like going to the Field Museum. It was huge. And so the fam and I were, hanging out for hours, going doing the, carnival rides and then the family stuff and the, carnival food. Yeah. And numerous tents there. The only dispensary currently is New era. They   📍 📍 had a tent. We’ll have a tent next year.

Local Dispensary Updates

Wow. I already got the 10 by tent. And so yeah we’ll be, staffing and working the peak in Marigold Festival next year. I hope that the weather is as nice as it is. It was, it’s like 70 degrees outside, no humidity, sunny, just a beautiful fall day.

Thank you.

Um, yeah. But, good news about our, store.

We are. This close to getting a building permit because the building permits are, it’s fairness in government, at least in local government at least sometimes. And so one of the ways to be fair is to process your application in the order, which was in which it was received. And so our application was received for the building permit about two weeks ago, and the processing time is about three weeks.

So hopefully this tune in next week. We’ll have a building permit and we’ll start getting going. Um, why don’t we do, before we dive into our main story, which just was a Yahoo Finance kind of Yeah. There was a lot of weird Yahoo Finance or like MSOS pump and dump schemes that were going on last week. But, um show, the people how we’re gonna be starting to do some marketing for Pekins, local dispo and supply, what you called it, all that, because the word cannabis is glaringly absent.

We’re gonna see if we can buy ads to our logo design contest. There will a lot of artists out at the, speaking, Marigold Festival, a lot of local artists. And so hopefully we can get a local artist to help make the logo for our dispensary. And again, it’s dis dispo and supply. So we’ll have an area that you can buy paraphernalia and maybe just also   📍 📍 hang out ’cause you’re not allowed to hang out in Illinois dispensary.

Marketing & Dispensary Design Plans

Oh, it’s no loitering in and out. Well you’re not allowed to hang out in a Washington state dispensary, are you?

No, but there’s no chairs or anything. Some people do have these, like little like Instagram little corners. You can take pictures, but what the fuck are you gonna do? It’s not like you have a chair and you can smoke out and hang out in Yeah, you’re not able, like there’s no, there’s still no consumption in Washington state, right?

No. But there have been private events popping up a lot lately, which is cool from, networking events to, actual like retreats out camping or cooking events, like the kind of thing that you gotta pay a hundred dollars for a table for. Yeah. And so we got a lot of those things going on that are still technically illegal, but it’s also turn and cheek.

But I again, go like our page beacon’s local supply. Oh yeah. We have

not, I I think I’ve listed it for public, but like, it’s not been really no. Created for public yet. And so it’s one step at a time. But yeah, hopefully after four months we have enough of an online following so that we have a nice, soft open either way.

Um, our main story of the week, besides our personal grievances, it has to do with Trump and a Yahoo Finance story that came out. And so that was on September the third, rewriting federal marijuana regulations could elect billions for the US economy. I know the jobs number on Friday was weak sauce, just like 20 odd thousand and change, and the JU June numbers were revised down into the negatives.

So I think he’s just priming the pump for 400 plus thousand employees that it could add if it gets bad’s. And then also creating billions of dollars of made in America jobs. This ain’t no imported weed. No, this stuff has grown in Washington state or in Illinois or North Carolina. If you’re buying hemp on the internet, well

now get back to the Hampton Internet though.

Couldn’t you buy be buying China hemp anyways? Like there’s no rule that says no, it has to be American, right? Like.

It’s, it, we may, the law firm may develop a cottage industry of import export, but it’s really hard to do any of that right now. Even for hemp, it’s really hard. And so like schedule three and still it’s will be very difficult.

We have a guest later to help us understand what America can learn from Canada that has legalized. And the export market in Canada is huge because its a legal market. But even then, like import export isn’t super easy for any aspects of the cannabis plant.

No, but I’m just dwelling upon the fact that right now the, I had a conversation with Neo.

I was on the show the other day and he is like, you keep calling weed and hemp different? I’m like, yes, it’s the same fucking plant. But the thing is, when I say weed, I want a good plant that I know is like. Marijuana, cannabis, whatever you wanna call it, it’s weed. Right. But type one cultivars. Yeah. When I say hip, I’m thinking t-shirts and, oil.

I’m not thinking like what I wanna smoke. Right. This is just bullshit loopholes. There’s no real legalization because there’s no real protections for truckers family, there’s no, you’re not safe, period. Hey, we can lock billions in tax revenue.

Yeah.

And in Trump’s words, some people like it, some people hate it.

You said about the the rescheduling and his news conference. And his news conference is coming up on a month next week. It’s been a month since Trump said, we’re gonna have something on that in a few weeks. In a few weeks. That doesn’t mean two, that’s a couple of weeks. A few weeks means maybe anywhere between three to seven weeks.

Otherwise, then it’s like, no, it was two months ago, bro. That’s not a couple of weeks or a few weeks, well, it’s a few weeks relative to how old I am. Bitch, you quit calling a baby however many months it is after it’s like 18 months old. And so if he’s gonna just drag this out for 18 months, he’s gonna miss the midterms.

And I don’t think he wants to miss the midterms. And I don’t think he wants to post like a negative number on next month’s job report.

I don’t get people, dude, right now there’s people going like, what is this Trump derangement? What the fuck are we saying That’s against Trump right now? Right. What we’re saying is the legalization process is very just convoluted.

Right. There’s and politicized this. Yeah. And not just people want like the god king person they think how many dummy legalization. Right. But this is not gonna give you protections for your trucking job or your employment. We need things on the books. Yeah, So like. When people say he legalized it in 2018 with the Farm Bill. I just think the conversation was more, it opened it up more for the normies, for lack of a better, right. Because I honestly don’t think there’s no such thing as cannabis culture, right? There’s people who are behind this plant.

Everybody thinks they have their own little perspective of like, I am I, even myself, I got an argument when I used to write for that one the brick weed and I told the guys like, I’m gonna make sure you’re not in buying marijuana. Like like I, have control over this fucking plant or the industry or the rules.

You know what I mean? Like yeah, this is a commodity. We’re gonna be in retail. It’s a lot different than, kicking you outta

corn farming. You can’t be farming no corn with that kinda attitude

buster. But who would be protecting though? You know what I mean? Like, it’s gonna be an industry no matter what I would love.

Home grows to be the in and that’s that and protecting your work job, right? This is not a. I wanna be able just to grow whenever want, I wanna be fucking safe. I wanna be able to know that I’m gonna be not left be left alone. So this guy’s got two, two big. People in Zero right now. Kelly Conway and Banker Kellyanne

Conway.

Let’s talk about the difference Yeah. Between his former advisors, Kellyanne Conway and who’s still in Trump’s inner circle, even though she’s not serving maybe she goes to those. Did you see the picture of Trump at the Rose garden? And, I’m using the, term garden. Oh God as like brick, the loosest.

It can be like, it’s just brick pavers, but now he’s turned it into a cafe and so like, he has all of it. He has tables and chairs and like people get service and stuff and so like, oh, I’d love you to have dinner with me at the Rose Garden. And he is got like 50 people having dinner with him.

Yeah. And then his table is in the right, the lower right corner next to, or the nearest to the entrance so people can see him when they come in and go out.

Gotta see it’s a big, beautiful basketball court. That’s what that is. But

yeah

She’s a champion. She’s running she’s saying she’s pro rescheduling.

This is how we get to where we have protections, right? We need to protect the plant from, I think rescheduling, it reinforces in medicine, protect the people give the

Yes. Recognize that it’s medical and give everybody the medical cannabis defense that Californians have enjoyed for 30 years.

But it’s an affirmative defense is, it’s legal in Canada. Like, I can’t wait to talk to our Canadian guests as far as like how things are viewed as far as the rules. Right.

How come we can’t legalize? Like why come you able to le and maybe it’s because Americans are so stupid they, Frame and form questions as inappropriately as I just was.

Well, and it could be, ’cause Chuck Nut’s got like two people in his ear. He’s got also Ben Carson saying as a doctor, oh my goodness, I few fewer restrictions will make cities worse, right? Like

right. Ben Carson is the doctor that Trump stood next to because he couldn’t hear his own name when he was called to the podium for a presidential debate.

He is a brain surgeon that looks like he’s on Valium while on sleeping pills. And so that is what he said he is the ex hud so he was in charge of housing and urban development

for

reasons I don’t know. But that was his former thing. He said, it won’t stop cities. It’ll make them worse.

Framing, rescheduling is dangerous. Elitist Blue city style politics. Marijuana will be used to increase crime, homelessness, and drug dependency. Arguing that more lenient laws equal more chaos. That will be the next video that I do. Does crime go up after legalization and so we have the top five laws that, or criminal trends that change?

After legalization. I hope to have that one shot and out to you by the end of the week. Nice. We did start a, um. I don’t think we have any no, Nobody’s throwing us any super chats. So if you do wanna throw us a super chat, that’ll get some recognition and then also we will be able to get that out.

That was one of the goals. The goals don’t really work. People just like to, watch

and chitchat. We, have 13 years of data set for like, legalization, right? Like this is silly. These arguments about like, for

like adult use data and so, schedule three is medical. Like it’s medical legal as opposed.

So we have like 30 years of that data.

I’m just saying like, like the information’s out there. Hey, it’s that time. We should take a break. Good. Think I have a bull pack.

Is it 20 minutes past the hour?

My goodness.

Time flies when you’re having fun.   📍 📍 Well, it’s 20 minutes past the hour. Everybody smoke ’em.

Break & Discussion of Hemp Regulations

If you got ’em,

we got this door. 2.0 just takes forever. What’s this? Oh,

Jesus. I get the, vape pen thing. Yeah.

You decarb. I need, a, I need, it’s four 18 somewhere like, um, this dumb motherfucker dude, this guy right here. I to order. Dude, you were able to order seeds before, like, like that’s like saying like, I protect South Korea.

But it, not only that, like Reid, Rand, Paul’s version of hemp, even Rand Paul is going to ban seeds. Everybody wants to ban seeds. Your seeds, the seeds that, that Trump purportedly legalized in the 2018 Farmville. And I think that’s silly and terrible because seeds are great for genetics and for home grow and for medical access.

However, it’s not like we can buy. Cocaine seeds or coca seeds. We can’t buy poppy seeds. When you go and you’re like, yeah, we can, they sell ’em in the, in, the aisle in the grocery store for herbs and spices. Those are all denatured. So just like you can buy hemp seeds that are denatured for like put ’em on your breakfast cereal and your protein smoothies.

Yeah, it’s the same thing for the poppy seed. You can’t actually go and grow those. Which, and I think it’s silly because that plant needs to be completely grown to maturity and then processed, at least with like weed. It needs to be grown completely to maturity and then hung up to dry like it’s tobacco or something.

There will be a point Freddy, if, there will be a point though, if this seed thing, um, ever happens, right? That it’s almost gonna be like appalachias, right? Where s where you think I wanna buy this area, right? Well seeds, you’re gonna be like, I don’t wanna buy any American seeds. That’s gonna be what’s gonna happen because we’re gonna have this the, shittiest seat.

Hey, sleeper here. Appreciate it buddy. Are these politicians truly der by canvas or are they bought and paid for by programs like Smart?

No, they smart.

Paid for by programs. Not like smart. They’re more bought and paid for by programs like big Alcohol. Big Pharma and, um, the police lobby. Um, all of us.

And so that’s smart. Who’s paying for ‘

em? Smart’s funded by the government too, right? They’re subsidized by all these grants about having to prove the wrongs, having to fight the evils. You don’t see that for alcohol. It’s all about

But who was with Big hemp this week in Washington dc The alcohol lobby.

So the alcohol lobby. That, that might be the next, video. Who’s the bigger boogeyman? Big alcohol or big pharma? It’s big alcohol. Big pharma can’t sink its teeth into this plant for a litany of reasons. I guess I can get into that there. But big alcohol needs to sink its teeth into this industry. Call it hemp call, whatever it can, because people aren’t drinking alcohol as much as they used to.

It’s already here. And the hemp beverages are blowing up.

They’re already here though. There’s, I say, big alcohol’s already here with that wine organization reinforcing these CBD rules. The thing is, it’s all gonna come down to one plant in the end. Right. And this could be a great question to ask our Canadian guests.

We’ll be like, how do they view, well, let’s

do the, LCB one. Yeah. All right. And then the LCB, let’s go to north of the border. We can use the LCB. To give us a juxtaposition because what is the LCB? Where is this

mgi, this is the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board, also known as the Fun Police in my area.

And this is an unfortunate story where I’m a rec legal state, we still have, these are the people that like, and this is where I give credit to hemp as far as if you’re gonna be a trapper or whatever, people are gonna do it, right? And but we have to get a point of legalization where things like this, like, essentially it’s like a farmer’s market where these people give, gather growers from all the area, they have collectives and they’re selling medical cannabis, right?

Everybody has a prescription. And every, we don’t have like what Illinois started, they have a registry and all this stuff. We had the, affirmative defense right away with the collective model. And then people would say, we’re part of this collective I grow for you. And it’s always just cannabis, right?

This is the whole. Thing we want when it comes to legalization is like for other things to exist without getting messed with. Right. And I understand probably the legal 5 0 2, that’s the law that made it legal here in Washington state. I 5 0 2, the 5 0 2 players are probably definitely against, just like, I, honestly, I not happy about hemp because this shouldn’t be a market that legal people or participants have to go against.

What trap are we protecting? Is that good? Oh we’re like,

cops are in on the take, like at all levels. The trap, they buy off politicians who are in, on the take the hesters are a great example of this. They are kicking the shit out of the industry because they can take all of their spending, whether it’s on lobbying or anything, and say that it’s at SGA sales and good or general administration or like, it’s a normal, ordinary course of business expense.

And, we can’t. And so they hired all the lobbyists that we can’t afford to hire. They fly in to and then they partner with big alcohol because they have an existential risk. If Mitch McConnell wins or if Perry, is it Charles Perry from Texas, if the that stripe of idiot Republican philosophy where they will not make a deal about what the line between hemp and marijuana is.

Any THC is not hemp to them. Yeah. No. THC is the only thing, the lag to have being hemp that lost in Texas, that’ll probably lose in, the, federal government as well, unless Trump comes out in support of that. If Trump says hemp is not intoxicating, that’s it. Schedule three is marijuana. That’s it.

Here’s the new definition of hemp that I want, and I’ll primary you if you don’t, maybe then, but then all the, MAGA people that again he, has no problem, like pantsing it seems like. Yeah if it, suits him. All those MAGA people that are just sitting there, the Donald Trump hemp.com or whatever, it was like Donald Trump weed.com that was ripping off my YouTube videos and shit.

Yeah, they will turn on ’em and he won’t care. And let me tell you why. Like I look at, um, traffic patterns for search terms. The hemp industry is minuscule. Like nobody really gives a fuck unless you’re in it or you like weed, which again means you’re all already into an insular minority of population, but still, like, they don’t think it’ll happen.

Like the guy was like, Hey, Trump gave us seeds that was today. And then it’s like, all right, but Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul wanna take him away. And Rand Paul is your guy that you just flew into Washington last week and had a special lunch with him, with the big alcohol lobby that a lot of people who are on cannabis or who use cannabis and advocate for it.

Credit for helping them drink less. For example, Willie. And what are they, what, what’s hemp gonna do? They’re gonna give it to big alcohol because of an existential risk of them making hemp be what it was supposed to be. Rope not dope. And defining THC outta the definition hemp.

Well, again, this is another reason why, federal parity is so important, right?

Federal level playing ground because like Texas, that just happened recently, right? Like, hemp was able to save itself. Again, it’s one fucking plant. This is gonna be in the end a plant that has grown and then regulated based on THC levels for whatever reason. It’s not all zaza or whatever.

But there’s gonna be a market that’s the unfortunate thing that people don’t understand Where, how many other products out there, where when you’re young or whatever age and you’re smoking it and you’re like, you know what? I could sell this shit. I did back when it was illegal. ’cause it was easy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Everybody who goes to a bar says it’d be great. We should own our own bar. Worst idea ever. Everybody who ever picked up an app said we should have an app. And then so now they’re doing that with ai, but starting a business. Okay, great. And then when people have like this stripe of imagination in what they think America should be, everybody should have a business and everybody should be able to like, have a small business and compete with one another.

The hemps like really big about that. But then if you like, talk to people that actually own businesses, they always go like, well, what’s your moat? What’s your special sauce? What is giving you a competitive advantage that other people can’t rip off?

Right.

And then all of a sudden, like license limits for example, that’s a moat.

That’s a competitive advantage. That’s a special sauce. Like they, you just can’t set up a craps table in. Howard Hughes Parkway on the strip in Las Vegas. Sure. I have no idea if Howard Hughes Parkway is on the strip in Las Vegas. No, I get you. I get you. It’s the only street that I know in Vegas,

but still because the

office used to be there.

But anyway, go ahead.

Let’s, um, here we go Cam. Thank you fan boy for your pre canvas. Used to be legit like alcohol in the back. This is the whole point, right? It’s right. It’s a store. It’s a, that’s what we’re gonna have. It’s a, right now California, they’re trying to push a thing for patient.

’cause it is medicine. It is fucking medicine. And you have an accountability system that, I think that’s part of the education that we need to like teach, right? Like this needs to be taught in med school. This needs to be part of people’s vocabulary about your own body.

But this

is a great, this is a great pivot.

And so let’s give him a proper intro. And again, usually when I, cut these, and so I guess we don’t really have to, I’ll cut an intro, outro on this later, but we have a wonderful guest and we have something that we’re gonna discuss, which I think everybody really enjoy. And because to our north, and even to our south, like Mexico’s voted for legalizing it several times.

It, hasn’t really ever gotten there. But to our north, they literally voted for it and did it. And it started to become something, we have to say years ago. ’cause I think it was like in 2018. Yes. But it’s ridiculous. And so we’re gonna discuss what can America learn from Canada   📍 📍 when it comes to legalizing cannabis?

Guest Interview: Harrison Jordan on Canadian Cannabis Law

And we’re joined to discuss this by a cannabis lawyer from Canada. Harrison Jordan, founder of Substance Law. He advises entrepreneurs, retailers, and producers across cannabis, I’m sorry, across Canada since the legalization of cannabis in 2018. So let’s welcome him to the show.

Tom, Maggie. So, so glad to join you.

Hey thanks for stopping by. We have so much to talk about. But first, why don’t you introduce yourself and do a little vo dire and classify yourself as an expert.

So my name is Harrison Jordan. I got called to the bar in 2018 and since then, I have had my own law practice, which is now called Substance Law.

And my law practice focuses on cannabis and reg other regulated substances in Canada, um, on all parts of the lifecycle, producers, ancillary businesses, retailers. So it’s, it’s been a, it’s been an a journey.

Right on. Awesome. And yeah, there’s a button, but let’s go all the way back in the way back machine.

Seven years ago now. I can’t believe it goes that, that fast. How did Canada come to legalize cannabis 20 18, 7 years ago now? How did they actually put it together and get it across the finish line? Because we’re sitting here praying that Trump. Will help us get Schedule three, bypassing Congress entirely and bringing cannabis into a legal ish framework where it’s finally recognized at least as medicine.

Well, when cannabis was first made illegal in Canada, most of the politicians actually, did not notice that it was part of the legislation. And so one could ask, how did it even become illegal in Canada? But if you fast forward, there’s been a lot of different, attempts from past prime ministers to decriminalize it.

And in the nineties and early two thousands, there were, um, a long list of cases. Litigation jurisprudence that developed to protect patients’ access to cannabis. Cannabis, of course, was becoming more and more prevalent. And then Justin Trudeau, as part of his election campaign, um, before he became prime Minister, was that he was going to legalize and regulate cannabis.

And for better or for worse he resigned recently, but that’s one of the things that he appears to have kept his promise on. So that’s at least one thing that people can point to and say, well, he said he would do it even though it might not have been the most popular thing and it happened and now we’re seven years out.

Parliament has to like, call it for a vote how many cameras, I guess we call ’em cameras for some reason. I’m sure it has to do with Latin and archaic usage of what the word camera means. It’s basically a Chamber of Congress. How many of those types of chambers of legislature, call it parliament or whatever, does Canada have.

Yeah, so the Parliament at the Parliament we have house of Commons, and then we have a Senate in the House of Commons. I believe it’s four readings, um, that it has to pass and it has to go to the same, I think we should name

ours, house of Commons. Like, it’s just, it’s nice, isn’t it? Like, well, so knowing who’s there, like we have Marjorie Taylor Green and Muah Omar from and then a OC.

And so we have like all these Wackadoos that are there and it’s like, we should call it the House of Commons. Like, well, if

Trump is renaming the Defense Department to Department of War, why not? House of War? Yeah. Oh God.

Or House of Commons right there. It’s like House of Commons is much bunch of clowns.

We’re gonna call Congress what it is, bunch of clowns. And then of course the Senate you’ll never get that passed them because do they have like weird rules in your Senate where you, can just sit on a bill unless you have 60 people, even though it takes 51 to pass it. Yeah. So it takes 60 to call the bill and 51 to pass it.

And I go like, this is stupid. Who made this rule?

Yeah. I, think that there’s a level of cough, gas, maybe in the US system that we don’t have. We also have a lot of conventions, right? So if the Senate is going to not make a decision on a bill, the Canadian public’s not gonna be happy. And even though they’re not elected, it’s, it doesn’t look good on them.

Um, so but, interestingly enough with the cannabis bill there, your Senate

is still appointed. Is your Senate not elected?

They’re not elected. They’re appointed. And they’re, that’s how

for many years we were like that the senators were appointed. I would have to get AI or Google out to ask and find out when did the Senate start running for election and not get appointed.

But I think when we first started, it was like that where the house was elected and the Senate was appointed by the governors

And, judges are appointed here. We don’t, and we don’t have elections for like comptrollers and stuff like

that. Our judges are still appointed unless they’re at the state level and then they’re elected.

But the problem has become, our judges are appointed not for merit. And so like, I wish that our judges would be appointed by the American Bar Association and not by the Republicans because I what we, do, at least in, well, what we do,

at least in Ontario, is there’s there is a committee that’s supposed to be arms length that puts together a list for the premier and this, in this case, on the provincial level, this is at least what they do in Ontario.

And then he chooses from that list. So he has some say and, This premier on a provincial level is very anti judge and, is you could say, a hard on crime. So it’s an interesting balance because at the end of the day, they get to pick, but they generally pick from this list that is somewhat arm’s length. Suppose

Harrison, what year did, Canada legalize it?

So it was legalized in 2018. October 17th, 2018 was legalization day. And so that was, that was a fun day for all because you could go out and you were not a criminal any longer for having cannabis, although, at least in Ontario, and I believe all the other provinces, sales didn’t start on that day.

So you could go out and consume, but you had to wait a bit in order to, was

that how it was to, that was how it was for Washington State, wasn’t it? M um. Yeah, the market doesn’t roll out for anything. Right? The rules get first. You, legalize it, in Illinois, but only ’cause like the grandfather in all the already regulated medical shops.

And so that’s why. And so they were just like licking their chops.

That’s, sales. But yeah, I can imagine it’s their golden ticket at least for that period of time. Well

this is, who do you think writes the law?

This is where we greatly differ, right?

Because I was one of the first states to, to legalize it to have recreational use, adult use. But our medical was like a wild west, right? Where you had someone who’s a health practitioner can write you a script and say, yeah, your bad back qualifies you, right? Because it’s very taboo still for doctors to put their livelihoods at risk, right?

People don’t understand. There’s people who just put their lives at risk to just help and create this like infrastructure of. Able to get this plant and wash State was just a free for all. Like, we just, what we try to do by the rules, right? We, didn’t have, we tried to have a path, Illinois, you guys had that like registry already.

So they had that kind of aches and pains. People, I think Canada, your guys’ medical too, at the time, you were able to order weed online, right? That’s not how your medical market was. So you already had that infrastructure for things to be established. So, yeah. Yeah. It’s

interesting because the me, the medical stream is, completely different than rec stream here.

So because of case law. Initially actually, you were only able to access cannabis from one government supplier. This is when medical cannabis became legal. Before rec. Yeah. And, it, it was grown in a mine, an underground mine in Flint. Oh God. On Manitoba. And, it was just it, was not the best weed, it was ground up.

It came in this gold envelope. It’s just, it was a soul supplied, Contract. But what ended up happening is patients were eventually allowed to, cultivate their own cannabis based on the number of grams per day they were authorized by a patient. And at first it had to be a specialist and there were only certain conditions that could apply.

And closer on to legalization it opened up and you didn’t need a specialist. There. And, I believe 2014 now medical. There could be corporations that could grow and sell medical cannabis. Oh, wow. And send it via the mail, like mail order. Right. So we did have that system and, one thing that did piggyback on that, on legalization is that those producers who were medical now had the ability to grow for the rec market.

The difference being that rec sales in Canada is administered and the retail system is really determined by the provinces, which is the equivalent of states in the us. That’s, so, it’s a very collaborative approach. That’s

a, and before we, we kind of pivot towards state control versus federal control, I just wanna revisit everybody’s watching at home.

All of you. When did you get to start voting for senators? It was just a little bit before women were allowed to vote. It was the 17th Amendment. That was April 8th, 1913. And that’s when you started to be able to pick your senators in America. So we just have come up on the hundred 10th hundred 12th anniversary of us being able to vote for Senate.

That’s how long it took for us. Thereafter there was the 18th Amendment, which ban alcohol, and then the 19th Amendment, which allowed women to vote. And then everybody’s like, oh crap, they voted for him. Let’s have a drink. We can’t. Oh crap. And so then they voted for another amendment to re legalize alcohol.

Now they got into taxes thereafter, and then they used taxes to make marijuana illegal in the thirties. And it was very similar, it sounded like, to what happened to Canada when they’re like, wait, why is it illegal here? We don’t remember voting on it. Same story in the thirties for us where it’s like, wait a minute, what are you talking about?

We, this is called cannabis. What’s this? Marijuana crap? You guys are making up stories. Anyway, it worked. And so that’s why I think now, like I see in America, electors picking their voters and gerrymandering maps, maybe that’s the next amendment that we need. It’s some type of independent, kinda like the fed organization that districts maps so that they are.

Really truly a republic if you can keep it a representative democracy as opposed to like Illinois’ MAP or Texas’s Map, or California’s map or Wisconsin’s map gerrymandered snake-like looking the guy who’s my congressman, I could literally come down as Jesus Christ holds in my hands, like making people see, like bringing people back from life.

I would lose if I ran as a Democrat.

You know what though? That’s not the amendment we need the amendment, we need, we talked about this before. America needs the lit amendment, the lit act legalize, Today

we would still have federalism principles. So let’s go to the second point on this.

You mentioned Jordan or Mr. Jordan Harrison. Sorry, I’ve got a first name as a last name and a last name as a first name. So do I. My name’s Thomas Howard. I have same thing, same problem. And so, um, now we have federalism principles in both states or both nations. How does Canada approach this?

Because we have a federal vacuum. We have like no policy and then we have all these states and there’s all these provinces in Canada that have created their own systems. So what has Canada done? Now that it’s federally legal to the states or the provinces have rights to do it their way?

Yeah. So in Canada we have a term for that.

It’s called collaborative federalism. And that’s the kind of federalism we have for the regulation of many different products and services. Right, right. On, on one sometimes you have some overlap. In some places it’s just the federal government, and in some places it’s just the provincial government.

And, that has seemed to work out. And it, we certainly need calibration on things over time. But that’s really what’s, um what, it’s been all about. So when it comes to cannabis, the production, at least commercially and also. Personally for medical cannabis is regulated federally generally, whereas the retail sale, how it’s retailed in Canada is is provincial.

But then you have things on both on both sides. On both levels. Regulating promotion, right? It can’t be promoted a certain way. And then you have some things on municipal level, which is

on it. When you say promotion, you mean like. Advertising. Right? Advertising correct. Yeah. And we have those which is interesting that the states, and so like we move it to schedule three, there’s still really a federal vacuum.

Like they aren’t saying, here’s how it works. There’s ways in the Controlled Substances act that Schedule three, but like, it’s not it’s gonna be an odd duck. It’s gonna be a schedule three medicine that has no FDA approval. And so like, it still needs some, lanes. So how do they do licenses in Canada?

So let’s say I’m in Manitoba. What province is Manitoba in first and then second. Um, would I need a license at the municipal, the provincial, and the federal level? Or how many licenses would I need?

Yeah. So Manitoba is a province itself. Oh, my gosh, I’m learning. So it’s in its own province. Um, and so it’s, really interesting ’cause federally, if you’re gonna produce commercially, whether that’s for eventual sale to medical patients or that is sale to the retail market, you need that federal production license when it comes to retail sale in a store which is, run by the province.

You need a license from that province if you’re gonna sell medically, because that’s a provincial, the medical sales program is still a federal only system where you send it by Canada post through courier any sort of delivery that is still a federal license and usually. Companies that that produce cannabis.

They’re the ones that have the medical sales license. There. There are some companies that just have medical sales, but it makes sense to have that level of vertical integration all in one facility if you’re already producing it. And there are different licenses depending federally on if you’re cultivating or processing.

Cultivating is anything up to harvesting and drawing a drawing and then to package it or transform it into something else. Um, a and sell it to, into the provincial market. You need a processing license. There is a micro and there is a cultivation, sorry, a micro and standard level. For each of the processing and cultivation.

And for micro, there are restrictions. If it’s processing on the amount, you can process a year, cultivation on the footprint, which was actually recently doubled. And there’s low less restrictions on things like security and regulatory fees. On the micro level. So at least in theory it’s, it seems well thought out.

And, when it comes to retail, it really depends on the, on, on the province and how they do licensing. Usually you need a license or authorization per location that you have. And depending on the province, there may be verti vertical integration or rules against it. So you may have producers that either through subsidiary area or themselves have retail stores.

So they have to apply for licensing on both the federal for production and provincial level for retail. And some provinces, they try to buttress against vertical integration.

Canadian vs US Regulatory Approaches

This is that

sexy talk. What

about, well, yeah, no, it is gonna get sexier. How do you handle pre-rolls

or

pre-rolls processor license or a pre-rolls a cultivation license because like that, how that comes up.

Yeah. So it is it, is a processing license if you wanna put it, if you want to transform it in any way other than your a draw your harvesting and dry drying it, generally you’ll, need a processing license. This,

well that, it it swoops us into like the next point that I really wanted to get through.

Imagine that America’s done it. They’ve actually at least legalized it medicinally. They aren’t gonna say let’s deschedule because they’re just not ready for that. They’re such children, they think they don’t need to get a measles vaccine. Um, and so as a result. We have to go through the Spooky Valley or the glass noss the few years that is schedule three medicinal cannabis.

Is that it, like, once the rules are set up, like, is that the end of the game? Like you mentioned that you’re a substance lawyer, so like you have no clients then like every, all the rules are set, nothing changes. You’re good. Like can you explain what happens after legalization?

Yeah. There has been tinkering of the law and there’s been a lot of pushback from industry because of high taxes, because there’s only 10 milligrams per edible allowed in a package that a 10 milligram THC per edible in per package of edibles.

Um, and there was,

let’s unpack that a bit. You said only 10 ’cause like. Dude, a lot of people in our country will say that hemp means, and I’m gonna, I always belabor the Coca-Cola because it’s just something that everybody knows, at least in America, I’m assuming, and I don’t know this for sure, ’cause like you’re on the metric system.

So your can of Coca-Cola might be 330 milliliters which is different than 12 fluid ounces. That’s 3 55 milliliters. Either way, that can of Coke has 40 grams of sugar, and this is the only time Americans have to do math and metric. When they calculate how much THC in milligrams they can put into something and still say that it’s farm bill approved hemp.

And so like if it’s 40 grams of sugar and you have to be 99.7, so it’s 0.3% delta nine THC. Right? And so. 40 milligrams. Well I am sorry. 40 grams. That’s, a thousand times to make into the milligram math. So you take the, 40 and then you add a thousand. So now we’re talking about 40,000 milligrams.

What is 1% of that 400? Right. And so like what’s one 10th of 1% of that? 40. And so, okay. 120. 120 milligram coke can be legally marketed as hemp if it’s got 40 like grams of sugar in it. And so a lot of those beverages that are out there on shelves, they use the dry weight basis of how much sugar or other dissolved solids are in their seltzer to arrive at.

Why it’s hemp. Um, you’re telling me that’s different in Canada?

Yeah, I, well, well, first of all, when it comes to total THC or what the THC content is, we use what’s called potential THC, which is THC, and then THCA with the 87% factor added in. And that, is what it is in Canada. All cannabinoids, all phytocannabinoids, that come from, or similar to ones in cannabis, which that’s a phytocannabinoid, is considered cannabis under the Cannabis Act.

So as a result, we don’t have what’s called the hemp, that, the farm pill loophole, that some call it. Yeah. And we, have a robust market of, that being said there’s restrictions on, there’s on THC, like THC limits, but there aren’t on non intoxicating cannabinoids. The law only says THC, but not the other intoxicating cannabinoids.

But Health Canada has taken a, you could say policy or given a guidance. That they’re gonna treat other intoxicating cannabinoids as part of the limit, 10 milligram limit for edibles. A thousand milligram total in a container of extracts and extracts. Could be ingestible extracts, like oral oil and pills, or it could be dabs, something that you smoke.

So we don’t do percentages and we don’t need to go through, I don’t wanna say mental gymnastics, but it’s interesting because I don’t think the farm bill mentioned Okay. Point three applies. Where the 0.3 applies. Is it in the raw, is it in on a driveway basis? Oh, there’s absolutely.

That’s the biggest aspect of the whole loophole that blows my mind down.

Inter, the

intermediary product is as well, that is produ that a producer has in the states is obviously gonna be much higher than that percentage. And then you add it to a product. Okay. Now you look at the. Weight or volume of the product. There’s

no regulation. We don’t have

to play that game.

It’s just the plant.

So that’s it. And so like we only have rules for production. After you harvest the hemp, there’s no rules for you to turn it into something you ingest. And so like legal, that’s not like as soon as you start reading it or smoking it or vaping at least because then that would get into the FDA’s jurisdiction.

Like Smokeable hemp, Flo is per the most outside of the, he, the FDA’s jurisdiction, that’s where they’re all illegal because they’re all violating the food, drug and cosmetic. Right.

I presume if you, I, if you have hemp farm bill compliant hemp, let’s say it’s flour or it’s a vape and you vape it and, you have some ashes or some of it remains, it’s going to be above.

Point three.

Right? It’s quite well the, Delta nine, right. And so that’s, that may actually qualify as hemp if we under in, in America. Because if we test that there’s a good chance that it’ll probably be like 0.2% delta nine and like 24% THCA. And that’s one of the interesting things.

Michigan doesn’t play this game. Michigan will just print a total. THC Canada doesn’t play this game. Canada Borders, Michigan over there at Windsor in Detroit we don’t have anything

called high THCA strains. It’s neither

does Michigan. And so, like they, and they define marijuana as 0.3 total.

And so like that line, as soon as it’s 0.3, you Illinois, because they’re hucksters and they’re they’re, scammers and they try to. Advertise how much THC they have. So if you could have a way to advertise more THC, say, like, inflate it by 13%, actually be more than that because it’s 0.87, so it shrinks down.

And then so you have to take that shrunk down number and then add 13% on top of it. So it actually would seem like more than 13%, but I don’t, I’m not gonna even get into that math right now. Like everybody would check out anyway. Um, that allows you to say that it’s 38% THCA, even though it’s, and you probably still had to pay somebody to get that result, even though like the total THC might be closer to 30% because they’re gonna have to come down that 13% once they decarb it.

And so they used it for marketing purposes. And so in Illinois, when we sell our weed. It’s gotta all be broken down at the acid level and at the the T-H-C-C-B-D-C-B-G level. Yeah,

we actually just moved away. We, moved away from that. So before you had to have total THC, which was the actual THC, not the THC and potential that includes T-H-C-T-H-C-A.

And now products are just going to have, have to have the potential THC the, total number. That’s as a result of some tinkering, some changes to the regulations we need. Yeah. Changes to

regulations.

Here’s what’s the, so, so, yeah. What’s, the legal smoking agent out there?

So it depends on the province.

Most of the provinces have tied it to, um to the age to purchase tobacco or liquor. There’s some variation. So in. Pretty much all provinces it’s, 19. That’s the age to purchase and possess. Okay. 18 in Alberta and 21 in Quebec. There’s also a federal minimum of 18. Um, and so as a result if you’re, 18 or under police could technically, charge you federally or they could charge you provincially, federally.

What’s interesting is that there’s no crime for a young person to possess not more than five grams, but I think every province does have at least a provincial law against it. And so you may get a provincial offense, which is not a criminal offense per se, right? It’s not like you have state criminal offense and federal offense like you, provincial laws are they can be serious and you can go to jail.

But for something like. But it’s not criminal per se. It’s regulatory. And for cannabis if you’re a youth with cannabis, you’re at most gonna get a ticket or a taken away.

The reason why I ask is like, say I’m a young 19-year-old connoisseur. Like, I was like, ah, man, I fucking love weed, weed’s.

The thing I, just wanna, this is my life now, right? Like, what if I wanna be a grower, is, what’s the entryway into that? Like, how can I, how can a Canadian person get involved in the cannabis industry? Because I think, as Tom and I were talking about earlier, how I just, feel there’s no real culture except for like the old prohibition, right?

Where we’re everybody’s like banning together against the cops and trying to save each Jesus’s ass even when there were people snitching upon each other and doing all the other bad shit ’cause business, right? But now we’re trying to bring all that to the front, right? We’re there’s good business practices, good products, and known just practices.

But yeah, how does someone say they just love growing? How does someone like get involved?

Well, I’ll say the culture. Yeah, so the culture thing is true. We would have lots of, what, every year? A four 20 rally and we would have a Freedom Festival in Toronto. I think the four 20, the unofficial four 20 rally in Vancouver this year, literally had four people look it up.

It was, it’s not a thing anymore, but I guess four people went. To where, it was held and that and, so on that point it is scary to see that from a culture side. But when it comes to, if you wanna grow in the cannabis industry, you need a lot of capital because health Canada requires a certain level of sophistication and good production practices, and not on the level of GMP, which is required for export.

Or you need to be at least GACP. So there’s a lot of money required, um, a lot of resources, and there’s a security clearance process. If you’ve had charges in the past, or police can say that you’ve associated with organized crime, you’re not going to be permitted to be in a, key. Operational role or be a master grower for a company.

That being said, they’re having been a number of legacy brands and a lot of the big, a number of the big ones at that will have transitioned to a legal market. And, so they’ve become retailers or they’ve become producers or they’ve switched between, but there has been staying power with their brands.

And there’s a number of legacy brands. So you’re not cut off completely, but you need money and you need to not have been charged with defenses in the past, which can be difficult for people in the legacy market. Even if they’re just charged with having grown and sold some cannabis health.

Canada can sometimes use that to not, we do the opposite security clearance,

like even the more act and then like MGI is able to get us access to the lottery where we want our license because he was arrested for a joint. Which is, very interesting that, those poor Canadians are getting locked out where, well now, like half of our country hates this concept of social equity.

They think that it’s just because I wasn’t arrested doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t be able to get a leg up getting a license. And so there’s that aspect that we have in our country. And so the more act, one of the reasons why we’ll never have bipartisan support is because it has that social equity aspect in it.

And so half the country is like, well, that’s just more help for welfare queens. And you’re like, interesting. So you create a law and arrest that person and then later say, oops, that was stupid. Let’s make a law so that people could make money off of this. Oh, not you have a criminal record.

Yeah it’s, very it’s strange because in Canada you’d think we’d have these social equity programs or we would go further than the us there, there is, there, there’s certainly, our efforts to bring more diversity to the industry. For example the Ontario Cannabis Store, which is the provincial, this whole provincial wholesaler in most of the provinces except one, the only wholesaler is run by that province. But they place a lot of emphasis on diversity and giving grants to, diverse organizations and organizations where the founders are from, disadvantaged communities.

Um, but

not a to go to a, so like they weren’t like that, was that like ours is a little. Different in the sense like, we you’re, can see that like if, like, we can try because like Ohio was the best defense, or like, they’re just saying like, we’ll give grants to these. And then they just listed races and then, and so that was immediately strict.

Oh I, was immediately struck down as, violating the constitution. It was hilarious. I’m like, you guys knew that wasn’t gonna fly. Like, we know this is Ohio, but like, and then in, in states like Illinois, they’re gonna be like, all right, no, we’re gonna say that you get special points if you were arrested.

Because they know that black and brown people are greatly overrepresented by that pool of people that have been arrested. And so that’s how they made it legal because they weren’t discriminating by race. They were discriminating by arrest.

Yeah.

Yeah

It’s interesting, like federally, there’s a navigator program for indigenous and First Nations owned companies where they get their handheld a bit more in the application process.

But no, no points, no special treatment it doesn’t give you an advantage, to have been burdened by the criminal law which is interesting. And especially when security clearances, they don’t look at what race you are, or at least they shouldn’t. They just look at what have you been, what does the RCMP have on you?

Even if you haven’t been charged, if RCMP has surveillance saying you hung out with someone from Hell’s Angels or from someone who’s charged with something, they can, and they do use that as reason to refuse. Um, so

yeah, that’s all that be un subbed. It’s ’cause it’s all to get views and followers.

Nothing has that happened. This is just all a distraction. Well, we’ve been doing this for seven years. Almost nothing has happened. Like, you can go watch something from 50 years ago, like where Jimmy Carter is talking about how cannabis shouldn’t be legal or illegal and all this stuff is wrong.

Nothing’s changed. Like we are, we have somebody on from a country that actually changed. How can I was gonna say something is gonna happen

because something did happen up here.

Right. Yeah. How can it change? And that’s the thing where it does seem like we are in, um, what was that movie? Groundhog Day where Yes.

Bill Murray lived the same day again and again. It’s, it seems like it’s a juxtaposition of that, which was a fictional movie and then a cartoon with Charlie Brown trying to kick the football. And Lucy just keeps taking the football away from him. And so like we’ve seen so much stuff that has actually, um.

Made progress and change and nothing. It’s like we, we did, we’ve done shows where, oh my God, the MO Act passed five years ago and nothing,

pardon? Well, well, what I what, I would say is that what’s going to make it legal in the US is the fact that you have for better or worse, different ways of doing it and, different thoughts and social equity, all of that.

But on the left and right, there are a number of politicians who are for this, but that’s also what’s made it illegal up to this point, is you have on both the left and the right enough people who are saying I like it how it is, or there’s no impetus to change and then it gets tough to do things.

So it’s, both a blessing. Um and it’s something that’s being detrimental, at least up to this point. But I think that’s the reason why eventually it will, become legal. You’ll have too many people on both sides where it’s like, it’s gonna be a political liability to be against being in favor, especially and I think a lot of politicians don’t realize this.

If you wanna get rid of hemp or you think the hemp loophole and you think that’s the wild west this gifting loophole legalized cannabis, make a comprehensive law, especially if it’s a law that has collaborative federalism, like in Canada, where it’s federally legal, but the states can have their own rules.

The states can choose to delegate rules. Like if states, it’s the states act don’t

have to break. That’s states act. That’s our, the one that we have right now. It’s technically the hemp bill is like that too. Like they they made it so it’s federally legal, but you can do your own thing.

Yeah.

And I’m seeing that there’s cases now looking at interstate commerce and looking at, well, can you make it illegal when the farm bill, at least to some, makes it completely legal. We actually had a case like that in Canada that went to the Supreme Court Supreme Court of Canada recently challenging Quebec’s prohibition on home grow.

So in Canada you can grow up to six plants. Um sorry, four plants. What is the number? Oh my goodness. I’m mean a limited number of plants.

Everybody is leaving the United States is watching this show right now.

Oh shit. So there’s a limited number of plants in Canada that you can cultivate.

Um, and I’m gonna make sure I get that. So sorry. Four plants, not six plants. I’m glad I didn’t.

Hey you just, them out. You make some big ass mother’s flower. It’s no big deal.

Well you know, what that was one of the things that got was part of this dialectic between the Senate and House of Commons.

We were gonna limit the four plants to be a hundred centimeters. And there were all these jokes about, oh, police are gonna have measuring tapes. Yeah. That, that was taken away. Suffice to say, generally you can grow up to four plants across Canada. Provinces have their own restrictions as to where it can be and safety measures.

So that’s another form of collaborative federalism. But Quebec outright bandit, unless you have your medical registration to grow for yourself or designated to grow for another patient, you can’t grow in Quebec and unless you’re a corporation with a commercial license. And so it’s interesting that went to court and it was argued that was unconstitutional.

We have a, nice principle called it double aspect doctrine here, and there’s other principles and, it can be argued that. You can’t say something is permitted federally and then prohibited provincially. One reason being that is a criminal law in disguise, and at least in Canada criminal laws can only be passed by the feds.

Well the Supreme Court ruled that it wasn’t a criminal law to ban it. The, when Quebec prohibited it, it was, public health and safety and not, not the same sort of principles as it wasn’t punitive like it is with criminal law. Even if some of the sentencing options could be considered to be similar as well.

The Cannabis Act doesn’t say you are permitted to do this. It’s negative. It only tells you what is not permitted. So by that logic, it’s like, why can’t a province then prohibit something within its borders? And that’s the way the Supreme Court felt. I think it was unanimous or a minus one judge.

So it was a very strong opinion from the top court of, Canada. But I think eventually we will see the home grow prohibition overturned like what we are seeing in Manitoba. It was previously president.

Oh yeah. It’s fantastic. But go ahead man. And one

last thing, one last thing I’ll well, I don’t know how much time we have, but one thing I wanna make it clear is that in Canada we politicians the government, especially on the federal level, took a very, what’s called precautionary principle approach.

Precautionary principle means. This is something we haven’t regulated before. Even though they did with medical. But we are going to when we legalize and regulate this, we’re gonna do it in a strict way where if there’s any unknowns about public health and safety, we’re just going to. Be restrictive on that aspect.

And so that’s what we did. And I by and large I’m hard pressed to find a change that has made things more restrictive in law. If anything, we’re seeing ret tinkering and opening up and it’s been amazing to see. So I would say the sky will not fall when legalization happens. And in fact, it may address all these things that people see as loopholes.

And I’m not gonna say everything’s gonna be hunky dory there’s still problems with child poisonings, for example. But that’s mostly from the illicit market when you have these co copycat products that look like Oreos and Runts and stuff. Yeah. That’s gonna happen. And, but by and large, it’s been Canada’s done a pretty good job.

Minus the excessive tax and the promotion restrictions that we have. And those things leading to insolvencies and consolidation, that sucks. And it would be better. We didn’t have that. It would be better. I have no clients that have had to close their stores because they’re small businesses and they can’t afford to buy four and see buy four store, open four stores and see which ones close and then keep those and rebuilt.

Yeah. So but by and large, I think it’s been a success, especially if you ask consumers the, illicit market. Some, figures are that less than a third of cannabis being sold in Canada is from the illicit market. And in fact, one survey by Health Canada, self-reported survey. So definite bias.

And even with that, it’s probably much lower than reality. It found that 3% of consumers purchase from an illicit source. That means that 97 either throw it or but I still, I think that

In our country they say like the illicit mark. This was on the Dale’s report and um, what’s the guy’s name and has got all the rings.

He wasn’t wearing ’em this time, Kabin or something like that. And so like these two guys are chit-chatting is how we are. To the, masses that are the internet and the purported industry. And they’re saying that the illicit industry is 15 times bigger than the legal industry in America.

And I’m like, eh, it doesn’t sound all right

to

me. No.

But, um, collapsing all of that would be amazing. So federal policy is one of the reasons why I’m trying to push it so hard. Hemp will always say give us our kudos, and I’ll be like, yes, you are responsible for delaying. Federal progress for seven years.

Thank you. Yeah. And um they, won’t see it that way. They’ll like, we caused the beverage craze. I’m like, yeah. And the THCA boom. But, um, yeah it’s one of those where I and you we could just go on and, I would be completely front lit ’cause the sun is moving across. And so I’m already starting to get like sun in my eyes, but I wanted to thank you for coming on the program.

Closing Thoughts & Show Wrap-up

Maybe it looks like you have something to say ahead. Chime in. Well,

it just regards to the the I market in Canada. When you say Alyssa, you’re not talking hemp, you’re talking actual growers. ’cause Canada has a long legacy of growers. But right. Am I correct? There’s no, yeah

we

the, illicit market doesn’t call it hemp.

All cannabinoids are part of the cannabis act, THC, having some limits that the others don’t. But it’s, it, there’s no loopholes. There’s no gifting buying a very expensive cup that happens to have cannabis. No, A judge would find that as selling cannabis. And even, so, you’re still distributing it generally for more than more than 30 grams, especially if it’s for the purpose of coer.

So we don’t have loopholes. It’s essentially, it’s legal or illegal. And then in the legal market, there’s different interpretations for different things and what envelopes can be pushed and whatnot. But we don’t see the these, complete loopholes. And we do have industrial hemp indu.

So cannabis products can you can have a cannabis product that’s. That’s c, b, d, no, THC. So less than 0.3. It’s still considered cannabis. However, we do give out industrial hemp licenses so that growers, anyone who has a licensed industrial hemp license, much easier to get them cannabis cultivation can cultivate a approved VARs that generally only go 2.3% and then they can sell those buds to a cannabis processor.

Wow. So we have hemp, but it’s literal industrial hemp. Yeah. Yeah. It’s cut off at 0.3, but they can still sell their product to, um, to cannabis processor. So we have an interesting play of things, but our hemp is not your hemp.

We’ve come a long way since the United States extradited mark Ambry.

Oh, yeah. And receipt. I’m gonna leave you, I’m gonna leave you with a good documentary recommendation. It is pre legalization, so it captures that culture back then. But it goes into that sort of issue. It’s called the Union. Yeah, it is amazing. Oh

yeah, 2006. That was a great one. And it, was one of those ones that that filmmaker made a cottage, little, like a industry or he made a living from that, movie.

And then he was able to make other movies. But that was really when I was getting, actually that came out the year after. No, I was in law school and that, that movie came out. And so like, I was over studying and, learning about it and going like, wait. So the whole thing’s been bullshit the whole time?

The whole time. It’s been bullshit. That was 20 years ago. And not, and so homeboy like unsubscribes ’cause nothing’s changed. No shit. That’s, why we’re talking to, Harrison going like, how did you guys do that? And, it seems like our policy or inability to have policy or the only thing, like the only way America seems like in can do something is through a loophole.

Like you, the only way that we’re gonna be able to have like healthcare is if we make it seem like a dodge or like, it’s like, wow. Everybody’s gut. It, our policy is all based on like it the stop sign shouldn’t say stop. They should say like, think about being careful. Eh it’s wait Hey, you’re supposed to stop at that.

It didn’t say stop. I know, but that means you’re supposed to, it’s like none of this makes sense.

Yeah. But well, I would say

Just

look, to Canada. ’cause all cannabinoids are part of the cannabis act. And even with some of the fixes to the hemp bill. If you’re gonna include intoxicating cannabinoids, well, what’s intoxicating?

If you’re going to Exactly. Unless you list it or you say any phytocannabinoids. But I don’t wanna make things more restrictive than they have to. Just to caution that if, a lawmaker says they’re gonna fix things without just le having a comprehensive cannabis legalization framework, there’s probably gonna be some other loophole to drive.

Yeah.

Yeah. And that was, they had this cannabinoid regulatory policy that was like, put forward by Ron Wyden and all the hemp people loved it because it essentially said that what they were doing is no longer out of compliance with the Food Drug and Cosmetic Act. And they just left marijuana on the lurch.

And so I’m like, wait, so you guys really don’t wanna legalize marijuana? You want marijuana to be the product that you are selling. Yeah. Yes. And so it’s, that’s one of the reasons why I’m like, this is so silly. Why can’t we just have a comprehensive single treatment for this plant? And then based on its usage, and then Canada’s like, yeah, we have that.

Well, we don’t like you. All right. You like pout and donuts?

Florida’s

a, good example of this. Like, it’s strange that the, governor there wouldn’t vote for, would, wouldn’t, would veto legislation that would’ve put some restrictions on, on hemp at the same time isn’t in favor of cannabis.

It’s like. All because you don’t like the smell, but you’re okay with the hemp part of things. It’s like it’s, like, do you wanna make good policy or do you wanna just do things that are I’m gonna put this in here, see if I

don’t think they wanna make good policy. You wanna have good policy or, yeah, we don’t have good policy.

Otherwise we wouldn’t like, say that money of speech under our, legal precedent. And so like it, it is, well they gave a million dollars to the other guy. Well, who’s gonna give me a million dollars? Right? Who’s gonna give me a million

dollars? Well that would, be a good constitutional amendment.

You were talking about that at the beginning of the show. So I wanna book in by saying that could be something to, look at because here we have lobbyists, but it’s not to the same the same degree. And sometimes good policy because it’s good policy does get passed.

And fortunately that’s what happened with cannabis legalization in Canada.

Right on. Well, hey Harrison, thank you so much for joining us. How can people get in touch with you if they need any help in the Canadian market?

My website is substance law.com. My email address [email protected].

I’m also on LinkedIn, so just look up my name. And I try to post, if not every day, multiple times a week about things happening in the Canadian cannabis space. So let’s keep in touch.

Well I think we had, outkicked our coverage on that one. So we pretty much have gone a little bit longer, but it was comprehensive and it’s a good conversation about things we can learn for how to legalize it here from a country that has legalized it.

Anyway shout out to our members and everybody who gave us a super chat. If you become our members, you will get the episodes early and we also give you a little kudos here in the credits. We’ll see you next time. We have a good week.