Ahead of the legalization of marijuana, Global News sat down with the president of a licensed cannabis producer to discuss his preparations for legalization, his predictions for the recreational cannabis market and concerns about highly concentrated cannabis products.
Brad Rogers is the head of CannTrust Holdings Inc., which has been a licensed medical marijuana producer since 2014 and before that a player in the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries for more than 40 years. CannTrust operates production facilities in Vaughan, Ont., and Niagara, Ont., and has supply agreements with all provinces in Canada except Quebec.
Global News: What are your thoughts on Oct. 17?
Brad Rogers: This is monumental for Canada. This is the end of prohibition. This is the modern-day end of prohibition. I’m not sure what Jack Daniels did on the end of prohibition — I think they were operating before that. But I think this is a phenomenal world stage opportunity. This is going to be the shot heard ’round the world. All eyes are on Canada right now.
We’re really excited and we can’t wait for this to happen. We’re going to normalize this and it’s just going to be something that is going to be woven into everyday life. We’re can’t wait to start here and go around the world with it.
GN: What has the preparation for legalization been like for CannTrust?
BR: It’s logistics.
The first part of this was grow, and how much can you grow? There was a bit of an arms race with respect to how many square feet you had, etc. Now we’ve established that the good growers can grow.
The next stage is getting it from the dry bulk process to the customer, and at scale.
Industrialization of cannabis is happening right before our eyes and we are forging that path.
It’s an amazing process to say, ‘We’ve got to put logistics in to deal with every single one of the provinces and their regulatory framework and their systems, to be able to ship into those provinces compliantly and then get into the retail channels compliantly. What does that look like?’ And if you don’t have that mindset and logistical framework in place… it’s such a race right now.
GN: What is your prediction for the recreational cannabis market in the near- and medium-term?
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BR: It’s going to be low, it’s going to be slow. We’re rolling out in a responsible manner, I hope, and I think there are going to be some big curiosity spikes. You’re going to want to patronize and you’re going to want to look inside a store and see what that looks like, and then experience the purchase process. I think you’re going to see a spike there. But it’s going to come back down to earth and it’s going to normalize for the people who do it and use it, to a degree similar to alcohol.
Long-term, I think product innovation is really going to take a chunk out of what alcohol is doing. If you look at the beverage world, it’s already socially responsible. The people who don’t smoke aren’t going to pick up smoking. They’re going to look to other products to be able to partake in.
The beverage and edible space — once those become regulatory-compliant and we can actually take part in those businesses — you’re going to see the next wave of that come.
Alcohol has what I call a, ‘lock on the mind-escape market.’ There’s no other legal form of mind escape in the world. So, now you have options. What cannabis can deliver is a vast array of mind escapes, so you can go from relaxed and on the couch to invigorated.
GN: What could Canada’s role be in the worldwide cannabis market?
BR: This is step one — legalization of medical and recreational. What do you get beyond that? Look at the verticals that we’re operating in right now. We’re operating in medical, recreational — soon to be — and pet.
Beyond that, you’ve got food, you’ve got wellness, you’ve got nutraceuticals, you’ve got so many other verticals that this could go into that I think it’s far beyond a $100-billion opportunity. We see it as at least $500 billion. It’s going to go in everything.
What does a new omega-3 look like? That’s CBD. What does a new probiotic look like? That’s CBD, as well.
GN: How will recreational cannabis affect the medical market?
GN: You have a production facility in Niagara, Ont. Were you concerned about you and your workers travelling to the United States?
GN: Volatility in cannabis stocks has been headline news recently. What are your thoughts on market volatility surrounding cannabis company stocks?
BR: There’s volatility in there because people are trading horses and they don’t know who to bet on. There’s froth and then there’s pullback. There’s uncertainty everywhere, but one thing is certain — this industry is as small as it ever will be right now. And so you have to pick your horse, but make sure it’s a good horse.
GN: In a recent TED talk, Ben Cort raised concerns about how commercialization is essentially taking what was a natural product — cannabis — turning it up to 11, unleashing it on the commercial market, and the social ills that can cause?
BR: It’s all about education. And it’s all about corporate social responsibility, which we’re responsible for and everybody else that’s in the value chain is responsible for.
The THC levels are maxed out, for sure, in some strains and some people really enjoy that. But it’s all about responsible consumption, as well. It’s like your alcohol content in your spirits or your beer.
We create strains that have a reduced THC profile and some of them have CBD in them as well, and some of them are one-to-ones as well. We’re not putting everybody “in the couch” and losing them for two days. That’s not the point. The point is to have a good experience with this.
I think we need to be responsible and educate the consumer as this normalizes, and it will normalize.
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
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