Welcome And Today’s Lineup

SPEAKER_00 0:19

Hey everybody, welcome to episode one hundred and twenty-nine of High Spirits. I'm Ben Larson. And I'm Anna Ray Grabstein.

Weekend Wins And A Living Funeral

Ben Larson 0:28

And we're recording Tuesday, March 10th, 2026, and we have another cannabis business news roundup for you today. We're gonna talk about Tilray's acquisition of Brew Dog for$44 million and dive into all things AI, International Women's Day, and whatever else comes to mind. So before we get there, Anna Ray, how's your weekend? How are you doing?

AnnaRae Grabstein 0:53

Oh, I'm doing so good. We were texting all about the things we were doing with our sons on Saturday. We were. Yeah, it was so cool. Uh I went to this really awesome science fair um with my son, and that was great, really inspiring. And then um on Sunday I went to what I would call a living funeral uh for someone who's at the end of their life to celebrate their life and got to experience some in incredible lessons and share memories. It was a really, really beautiful ritual. So I felt really filled up by that.

Ben Larson 1:33

And sounds very emotional. Like I'm just trying to imagine. I've never been to one. I I would can you explain it just a little bit? Because like having the person there that is celebrating their own life and eventual passing, which I I presume is is is it like on the near horizon?

AnnaRae Grabstein 1:54

Like, do they hard hard to know exactly? So I won't blow up this person's life, but um and I don't I can't say that I know anything about really what a living funeral is except the experience that I had. And this is just a person who has been fighting an incurable cancer for three years and um is at the sort of end of the rope of treatment options, and decided to invite important people in their life to spend time in their backyard to share some pointed words and to receive words from the community. And there was a bit of a ritual with a beautiful flower lay and some sage, and it was just really incredible to get to to celebrate a person's life with them still there. I've been to a number of funerals where I've learned things about people that I never knew in their life, and it was always it always was a missed opportunity, like wow, I wish that I knew that thing about that person, and I'm getting to learn from these people that were important to them later. And this was a a way to get to learn uh and hear some of those memories and and special remembrances uh in the presence of this person at the end of their life. And one of the most powerful things that he said is just to keep our hearts open and be present, and also uh that he's got to this place of peace where there are no unfulfilled wishes, and that has really got my head spinning about what that can look like to get to a place in life where we have no more unfulfilled wishes. And I think that that doesn't come from a place that he got everything in life that he wanted. I think it comes from a place of of reflection and and letting go. And it's it's a powerful thing.

Ben Larson 3:53

Yeah. Um wow, yeah, that's incredibly powerful. I was listening to this motivational podcast this morning, actually, that was talking about like don't die with your song, you know, like inside you still. Um yeah, wow, what a special experience.

Skateboarding And Finding Your Inner Kid

AnnaRae Grabstein 4:09

Um, yeah, so cool. Yeah, it kind of you were making my seventh grade self this weekend separately. Your texts, you were sending me texts of skateboarding with your son Alistair, and my head immediately went to oh my gosh, when I was in seventh grade, I loved all the skater boys. I just couldn't fit enough of them. Um, you kind of made my heart sing a little bit. My seventh grade self was happy.

Ben Larson 4:34

Yeah, in in line with what you're saying, you know, I've I've been hearing a lot lately about um kind of finding your inner child and continuing to give it space. And uh, who better to inspire that than my own son, who uh definitely reflects a lot of my characteristics. Um, but he's gotten into skateboarding uh recently, and and I used to be into skateboarding, you know, back in junior high and high school. And so uh with a healthy fear of me breaking myself, which inevitably will happen if I keep this up, um, I'm just kind of giving into it and I'm enjoying the moment. And it's something that we are really enjoying together and just uh getting lost in. And so we we had like a three-hour skate session at a skate park, um, and just you know, laughing and enjoying enjoying the outdoors, and um, yeah, really grateful for for the opportunity to do that. And I actually uh we went to a skate shop and I got to like you know pick out a new deck and trucks and all the all the wheels and all that kind of stuff, and um, yeah, it brought me back to my my 12-year-old self. And so um, you know, similar similar to uh your takeaway from the weekend uh is kind of what my takeaway is was as well with my son.

Women In Cannabis And Belonging

AnnaRae Grabstein 5:48

That's beautiful, it's so cool, and he's a super cool kid, so I'm excited to see where this all goes. He's he's all right. I know he's listening. What's up, Alistair? Well, um, you know, it's it's March, which is um women's month, women's history month, I think. And over the weekend it was International Women's Day. And it made me think about this sticker that was um on my friend's car for years that said, Love your mother. And I started thinking about really what that means, love your mother and the cannabis plant that I think of as the mother plant. Cannabis cultivators have whole rooms that they call their mother spaces, and just this importance that women hold in in this space and and how much progress um women have created in cannabis. And at the same time, I will admit that I've really struggled to be in women-centric spaces uh in cannabis specifically, and haven't always felt super comfortable. And part of that is because as I've grown in my cannabis career, I have spent most of my time in rooms with mostly men, and you get used to that. And uh this this weekend and seeing people celebrate women online was just this moment where I was remembering about all the women that have really supported me and how many more women are in my professional world today than there used to be, which I feel really stoked about.

Ben Larson 7:19

So yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's um it, I mean, truthfully, it felt a little bit quieter online than it normally has in the past. And I don't know if that's because it is now dispersed through the whole month versus like concentrated on a day. Um and you know, I felt a little bad because I I was on LinkedIn and I got fed up, you know, in old posts like the algorithm tends to do these days, and I'm like, oh shit, I missed it. Um, but I guess I didn't miss it, it's the whole month, so there's still time for me. Yes, it is, but yeah, you know, I've I spent a lot of my life being, you know, uh an ally uh to to women. Um I grew up around women and always saw women in like leadership positions, and um I guess as I've come to develop my own like leadership style and and how I support my team, um, you know, that that was always kind of felt really natural to me. Um, but I want to give like kind of one anecdote that actually pulled away from like our management recently is that um one of our employees, one of our star employees, I will say, um uh I won't name her, so uh she gets some anonymity anonymity. Um, anyways, she was on uh maternity leave uh not too long ago. She recently came back, and this was her her second round, uh, you know, with us. And what we found out her superpower was was systematizing her her job function and setting us up for success so that we hardly recognize that she wasn't there. Um, and she's done such a phenomenal job at this at this day and age with AI and creating structure and systems and directions. Like she's now like elevating into this role of helping build out systems that can get automated. And I just loved this evolution where like she is uniquely positioned because of the female experience to play a really critical role as we modernize our our company. So yeah, just uh thought I'd throw it out there because I know I know a lot of CEOs are like, oh god, maternity leave, what are we gonna do? But like it was actually a really special realization and excited for this next phase of of her career.

AnnaRae Grabstein 9:37

That's awesome. I love the idea of family leave as the process unlock to move towards more like process automation. It's so smart and what a cool superpower. So neat. Um, I also shared um a picture when I was in Vegas at MJ Biz, uh, a fellow woman CEO, Melanie Nash, invited me to go on a hike and to leave the strip. And uh she posted a picture of us. It was an incredible hike. It was a full moon over the desert outside of Vegas, and we just had such a good time and we talked about our lives and we got business done. And um in posting that picture, it made me also just think about how many golf courses I haven't felt welcome at. Um, because I'm just not good at golf. That's the truth. I've asked you before, I've told you. I was like, Ben, I'll play golf with you, but you got to get me lessons. I think you've you offered once.

Ben Larson 10:30

We will we will fix that.

AnnaRae Grabstein 10:32

Yes. However, um, seeing that picture made me think a little bit just about how there's lots of places that that aren't golf courses that we can create spaces for ourselves. And this idea that golf represents of like the good old boys club about doing fun stuff leading to business or going into places where we feel like our highest and best selves, creating opportunities for creative inspiration as a part of work. I love that idea. And and so to all the ladies that might be listening that have never felt welcome on the golf course, um, find your spot too. Like get out there under the full moon, howl at it, do whatever, do whatever makes all the sense for for us. But those like work and play things that the boys have been doing for a long time are things that we should get to do also.

Ben Larson 11:23

Moonwalks. Let's go.

AnnaRae Grabstein 11:26

Hell yeah, hell yeah.

Ben Larson 11:28

Yeah. Um, yeah.

A Poem About Leaping To Freedom

AnnaRae Grabstein 11:30

And so, okay, last on my women rant, and then we'll move on. How about that? Is um in in 2019, uh I was at NorCal Cannabis, and we were scaling and growing the company a bunch, and um we were talking about doing this collaboration with Chelsea Hanler at the time, and we put on uh an event called um a tribute to women in cannabis. And as part of that, we printed this incredible poem that we put at everybody's seat at the table, and it's called uh autobiography of Eve. And I thought I would just read it in author of Women's Month for all the ladies out there because I just love it. And I'll put a link to it um in the show notes as well. So, Autobiography of Eve by Ansel Elkins. Wearing nothing but snakeskin boots, I blazed a footpath, the first radical road out of that old kingdom toward a new unknown. When I came to those great flaming gates of burning gold, I stood alone in terror at the threshold between paradise and earth. There I heard a mysterious echo, my own voice singing to me from across the forbidden side. I shook awake, at once alive in a blaze of green fire. Let it be known I did not fall from grace, I leapt to freedom. Wow.

Ben Larson 12:57

I I literally have goosebumps, but also needed explained to me a little bit.

AnnaRae Grabstein 13:06

I love this idea of women in cannabis not falling from grace, but leaping to freedom amidst a blaze of green fire. It's just this feeling like when I first started working for in cannabis, I felt like it was something that I had to be ashamed of or that I had to keep secret. And um, over the years, a big part of my own hypothesis and my work was that some of the biggest change that we could make in creating opportunity in the industry was about just coming out of the closet as people that work in cannabis, that use cannabis, that understand cannabis, and that it's something that isn't dark and in the shadows. And it's not a fall from grace, it's a leaping to freedom. And and so I I really carry that that message forward, and that's why I love this poem so much.

Ben Larson 13:59

Absolutely. And you know, like this day and age, we're so lucky to now be in a place where this is becoming more common, and people very much wear it on their sleeves, consumers, right? And um, kind of the move away from other substances and and adopting cannabis as as their wellness routine, right? And I've seen many women jumping into space from the outside and kind of like bringing their networks with them. And one of them that stands out was one of our one one of our guests was um Melissa van Vanderhaar, uh coming out of the convenience store space and definitely a leader in that space, but very much wearing it on her sleeve like cannabis is the future. And so uh it is gaining momentum, and it is really powerful when women are doing it because um of the roles that they hold in their communities and in in their families. And I'm seeing it here in our own community, like you know, the when they're open and excited about the products that you know we're working with and and that kind of stuff, it like it brings me a lot of confidence. You know, I I used to be scared to talk about it. We we talked about this a couple years ago. It's like um, you know, what it that feeling of being working in the space and and how you might be perceived by your your kids school when they inevitably find out. Um, but now it's open conversation and people are are really excited and and really curious about it. So um, yeah, what a what a an amazing evolution that that we're kind of on here.

AI And The Rise Of Perfect Enforcement

AnnaRae Grabstein 15:29

Amazing. So cool. Uh let's jump into our next topic. Yeah, what is it? I want to yeah, I want to talk about AI a little bit. Um, AI is a very um hot topic these days in everyone's life. Uh, but in particular, there's been a lot of news about what's been going on between the federal government and anthropic, um, especially as we've been uh uh starting this new war in the Middle East. Um, and it also came up after the US captured Nicolas Maduro in uh Venezuela that potentially Anthropic was used by the Department of Defense in some of the planning. And I listened to a great podcast episode of the Ezra Klein show over the weekend. Um it's in it's entitled Why the Pentagon Wants to Destroy Anthropic. And in this podcast episode, which I encourage you guys all to listen to, there is a technology expert, Dean Ball, who talks about that America is predicated on imperfect laws and imperfect enforcement, meaning that there are just a lot of wild laws on the books. But because enforcement is so challenging and imperfect, it doesn't quite matter. But what they talked about in this piece of content is that due to the technological advances of AI, we're at the precipice of where data and AI could create perfect enforcement as opposed to this imperfect enforcement that that we live in now. So think about just surgical and exacting enforcement of every law or regulation. And that immediately made my head think about cannabis because we just constantly are at the intersection of policy and regulation and business opportunity. So I wanted to bring that up with you, Ven, and start getting your thoughts about this. What is what is there to lose and to win around where we could be moving in cannabis with the difference between imperfect enforcement and perfect enforcement?

Ben Larson 17:39

Yeah, it's really interesting. I I feel like we were inferring this uh, I don't know if it was last episode or a couple episodes ago, uh, just about the ability to leverage technology and the fact that we have seed-to-cell compliance um to have more exacting, you know, regulation of the industry. Uh you know, how you feel about it probably sits on where you lie on on kind of the black and white scale of you know uh compliant operations. Um, but certainly being able to leverage you know AI to kind of consistently scan you know the activities of of these tracked companies, you know, like it would pretty much overnight get rid of the concept of like burner district distribution and um kind of activities that are diverting cannabis away from regulated markets. Uh you know, how that would get enforced and the litigation that would have to ensue afterwards. I mean, it would cause a flood of court cases or maybe just a lot of quick settlements um and and slaps on the wrist. I don't know how that would result, but I think the industry's ripe for it, right? Like we, you know, I was just talking about the ability to identify a process and and create kind of an agent to kind of do those processes, and like why couldn't our our regulators do that and you know actually kind of stand up to what they're supposed to? I know like we we were discussing just a couple weeks ago, like the DCC losing their lawsuit for not upholding the laws that they were tasked with governing. And um, I mean that's a prime example. I I do think if they adopt the technology, that they very quickly could become compliant.

AnnaRae Grabstein 19:30

Well, and so to dive into really what you're talking about is this idea that within our track and trace system, all the data is there. We're just not pulling the insights from it in a useful way. And this concept of what the future in the next chapter of AI looks like is AI agents that are taking actions. They're not just waiting for a human to say, can you connect these two concepts or can you scrape this data and find things? But that we could really create agentic regulators that were every morning scraping the track and trace data, flagging things that look strange, and creating actions on the back of whatever those insights are. And while I see that there clearly is a lot of benefit to kind of the progression of the market, there's also so much static within that because it isn't all about just flagging transactions that might be diversion. There's also laws out there that some might consider extreme. Like in Michigan, just yesterday, the CRA, the cannabis regulatory agency, reminded all cannabis licensed retailers in the state that they're not legally allowed to call themselves dispensaries, and that that term in Michigan is reserved by law for pharmacies, and that they are only allowed to call themselves cannabis provisioning centers. And it's like Wait, whoa, whoa.

Ben Larson 21:03

So do pharmacies don't currently dispense cannabis, right? But they're in advance trying to reserve that title for them.

AnnaRae Grabstein 21:14

Not for cannabis dispensaries, just the term. If someone says I am called the leaf and I'm a dispensary, that is not allowed. A dispense, a cannabis dispensary that we would call it in any other place, is not allowed to call itself that. It is by law required to call itself a cannabis provisioning center. And this is an example of kind of the static that could be created in a if we live in an AI agentic regulatory world where these agents could be out there and they could be scraping social media, scraping reviews, scraping websites. And anytime a licensed cannabis retailer accidentally called themselves a dispensary, there could then be a Whole range of enforcement actions that come on the back of that. And I think that part of compliance strategy and the way that businesses navigate complex rules is weighing the penalty on the other side of, well, how likely is it going to be that this law of that I'm not allowed to call my dispensary, myself a dispensary, is going to be enforced. And if it is enforced, how comfortable do I feel with that penalty? And and there's just a constant reckoning of is this going to actually be enforced and is it does it really matter? But in a world where everything is enforced and everything really matters, I just worry that we're we're gonna lose the through pie the through line of of what really actually matters.

Ben Larson 22:53

Or or or maybe it just forces better regulation or uh or better laws. And and we we can predict that you know the the same tools that are used to enforce them can also be used to help make them and kind of do these iterative processes of understanding like what are the implications of of you know in uh implementing some of these laws. Um I I think about supply chain a lot, obviously, and and think about quality, and what I could see it preventing in the future is like a lot of these retroactive recalls that we see in California. I feel like every other day I'm getting a DCC email being like, oh, voluntary recall or involuntary recall. And it's like these are things that should have been caught during the production process, and so being able to have an AI agent review every COA that comes from a lab and it you know, tying that to a product, like you can catch those things early on. You can catch, you know, like small pesticide hits and like single batches like that we know the DCC doesn't have the firepower to put people on, but you can certainly put an agent on that level of stuff, or or things like label reviews. We always talk about how no agency is going to be able to sit there and review every single label for every new SKU that's coming out, but it agents sure is how it could, or it could at least flag something as potentially being you know attractive to children, and then that is the one thing that gets in front of a person, and then there's a final judgment call, right? So there's a there's a lot of opportunity where it could help remove a lot of the pain and frustration about the quality of the products or the types of products that are hitting the market.

How AI Reshapes Jobs And Teams

AnnaRae Grabstein 24:29

I I totally agree. And the reason this is such an interesting issue is because it's so multidimensional. There are so many incredible benefits to utilizing this type of innovation. And I also see just so many changes to the way that we operate as humans, the way that our businesses work, and even to the way that our civilization um is underpinned in terms of what are the virtues and morals of the way that we see ourselves living within the construct. And and the United States was founded with by people that were very skeptical, skeptical of government in in general and government overreach into people's lives. Uh and we are looking at an opportunity where it would be very, very easy for the government to use technology to get very, very deep into our lives. It could be that we're no longer able to roll through a stop sign with a nice California stop because the law says you're supposed to make a complete stop at every stop sign. And better give me a self-driving car then, because that's just it's like the cars could be alerting the government every time you don't make a complete stop. And that's not the world that most of us want to live in. Uh and yet um the laws of our country have not caught up to regulate kind of what is what is the boundaries, where are the barriers of how far the implementation of AI is allowed to to reach in into our lives and into enforcement. So I think that this is something that is worth thinking about because the train has left the station and the changes that are coming are going to happen fast. We just we don't exactly know what they're gonna look like yet. I I spoke to a friend who is very high up at a at a tech company this weekend, and she says that internally the way that they talk about it is that the the economy and the world are gonna be completely rebuilt in the next three years, and um that's gonna come real fast.

Ben Larson 26:41

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I believe it. Um I I just can't get over this whole like rolling stop thing just because it's just like we're taught to drive like that. Um if they implement that, then they should implement the agent that goes through all the Epstein files and identifies all the guilty. That's all I'm gonna say.

AnnaRae Grabstein 27:01

Done. Boom.

Ben Larson 27:08

Uh anyways, um yeah, I don't know. It's I I I do think the economy is completely getting rebuilt. I, you know, I follow a lot of what's happening in the AI sphere, and it's very clear that um a lot of the jobs that are high paying today are are ones that are ripe for for disruption, and conversely, um some of the I guess lesser attractive white uh blue-collar jobs um are ones that will remain and and uh are attracting people. I I have some friends that maybe coming out of you know the you know the the kind of services-based realm that are thinking about launching, you know, very physical companies like of of like whether it's whether it's gardening companies or or house painting or sprinkler companies. Um one of those actually popped up when we were at Canabev Summit. Um it it's just it's just uh slightly unsettling, but also like kind of a fun like exercise to think about like what does my role in in the economy look like in in five years, right?

AnnaRae Grabstein 28:20

Yeah. And I know you've taken a very open-minded and adoptive approach as you've been thinking about it in your business, Ben. And and I think that's really incredible. It's so important for for businesses to to keep up because otherwise you will be left behind. But inevitably, our world is changing. So as we keep evolving, kind of the inner workings of how we make an SOP or how we systematize processes to unlock the ability of humans to use our critical thinking pathways, uh, we just are we're on a wild roller coaster. Um, and I'm here for it.

Ben Larson 28:56

But yeah, I mean, I we we we have to stay on top of it, especially as business leaders, right? Because what will happen is as you hire certain people into your company, there's gonna be this forcing mechanism because you're gonna compare one person next to the other. And if if the productivity is one of one is far outshining, you know, one of your you know, longer tenured employees, like it's gonna cause extreme, extreme tension. And so, you know, we aren't forcing it upon people in the company, but what we are doing is a building it where we can in the in-between to facilitate just kind of the fluidity of operations, but also creating the opportunity to level up our existing employee base and inspire them about what they could do, how they can make their jobs uh easier or simpler or more focused on the things that they are absolutely necessary for. And what I anticipate happening in in the not too distant future is that many of the the much of the employee base will they're they're gonna become builders um of systems more so than executors of tasks. And I think that's the most important way for any employee in a company to start thinking about their role. Like, how can I build myself out of this and what can I focus on next?

AnnaRae Grabstein 30:16

Mic drop there. Well, let's uh let's talk about Tilray. What do you got for us? You put together a whole info, yeah.

Ben Larson 30:23

Yeah, yeah. So Tilray uh just acquired brewdog, which is uh a fairly well-known craft cannabis uh darling at one point. I think their valuation was in uh like around the two billion mark at one point, but then they have since receded pretty significantly. So a$44 million acquisition. And I think when we start to think about the activities of Tilray and the various acquisitions that they've made over the years, is are they still a cannabis company? And and and I think that's a big question. And as a as a private, you know, Virtosa, we're a private company and we've raised venture capital and and our value is pegged against the the cannabis industry, but Tilray's a public company, and they're I think currently trading at about a hundred nine hundred million dollar uh market cap, and they have somewhere in like the 850-ish million revenue range. So it's like a 1.1 X uh revenue multiple that they're that they're getting on on their stock. So not very huge in the forward-looking range, it's just very it's a very sobering valuation, right? And so the big question is they have a lot of revenue now coming in, and we can break this down. They have a lot of revenue coming in from craft uh craft beer. Um, they have a very significant chunk coming from cannabis still, and then there's their EU operations. They have they that they one of their early acquisitions was Manitoba Harvest, which is a big hemp foods, so not like not hemp cannabinoid, but hemp foods uh company, and so it's just a very interesting diversification play. And um, yeah, it's it's it's I haven't counted out Tilray, although I have counted out many of the former, you know, Canadian publicly traded companies.

AnnaRae Grabstein 32:12

I'm so glad you wanted to talk about Tilray because I had counted them out. I had watched their stock over the past five years decrease over we looked it up this morning, 97%. Um, at its height, it almost hit in the last five years, it was close to 300, and now it trades around seven dollars, give or take. And so it's lost so much market cap that I think people just look away uh of what the heck is going on, and and you hear people kind of talk, talk some shit about about the CEO and his compensation, but there's actually a lot of business happening inside of this company. Let's let's let's dive in.

Ben Larson 32:54

Yeah, yeah. So, like to kick it off and and just put some brackets around it, um, there's four major segments here. Um, so we have cannabis, uh, which is largely Canadian, uh, some international medical, uh, that and and a very small amount of of US hemp THC, I guess, kind of goes into this category. So that's right just just under 250 million, which is about 30% of the revenue. Then they have the uh Bev Alc segment, uh, which I mentioned contains a a whole host of kind of um fallen from grace brands. You have like Shock Top and Sweetwater Brewing, Montauk Brewing, Um, Alpine Beer, Green Flash, and probably about eight others.

AnnaRae Grabstein 33:42

Um they've been acquiring these from existing very large BevOk companies that are yeah, yeah.

Ben Larson 33:47

I think they got a package of five, like from ABM Bev at one point for for killer killer price, you know. Again, you know, uh brew dog was was huge at one point, and uh they got it on a fire sale. So uh the Bevelk portion is 240 million, so 29, right? Almost dead even with cannabis. Um, and so you know, I I think based on where things are trending and how they're they're leaning into the business, beer might be more than cannabis next year. Uh, we'll see. The distribution, uh pharma distribution in Europe, which was kind of like an under-the-radar thing, I I don't still don't know much about, is 300 million uh dollars of of the business. So that's 36 percent. And then lastly, like I mentioned before, uh, the wellness side, the hemp foods is about 33 million, so about four percent. So still significant, but not not nearly as much as these other three major pillars of of their of their business. Um I think revenue is one thing, and and we can talk about like it going up and down, but the other notable like through line of all this is just the amount of money that they've been losing year over year, and that is probably why the the stock price is as modest as as as it is today. Anna Ray, I know you like to talk about losses and and losses in these publicly traded companies. Um, what's your kind of read on it? Like, are you investing until right now after counting them out?

AnnaRae Grabstein 35:27

You know, I am careful to not invest in cannabis companies after making really bad choices in public cannabis stocks over the years. I'm just terrible at it. Uh I I know too much. So I don't know if I'm into be rushing to invest in Tilray, but I will say that you've really got me thinking about them being much more complex than meets the eye, and that they are more than a cannabis company. And really, what what are they at this point? And it makes me think about how uh PepsiCo scaled and started acquiring companies. And at one point they owned Frito-Lay. Um, and at that point, are they still a beverage company if they also are selling chips and and other things? And and I think that that this is what Tilray is showing us is like they're really becoming more of a global CPG company that is engaged in cannabis as one segment or channel of their business. And that's what's exciting to me, is that I think that there's an opportunity for many global CPG cat uh companies to look at having cannabis exposure. And Tillray maybe started with cannabis and became more diversified as time went on. But I think that we'll see the opposite as there hopefully becomes more policy and regulatory certainty at the federal level in the United States. But even without that, there are plenty of other countries that do have federal national laws on the books for cannabis and that global CPG companies will just target investing in those countries. And case in point is Europe and Canada, and there's just a lot of action in other places around the world. So there's certainly opportunities. It's just the US is going to be off the table for for those companies and until we until we fix some of our mess.

Ben Larson 37:27

Yeah, you know, um actually I I think I wrote about this a couple of years ago when when Tilray acquired Hexo up in up in Canada, and you know, there was the Mulsen Cores like connection and all that kind of stuff. Um being in the you know, the beverage category, I can't help think about the the long game here, and you know, maybe this is a a very you know uh fine needle to thread, but if and when TAC beverages become kind of a mainstay on on supermarket shelves, liquor stores, you know, is this their opportunity to become the A B and Bev of the TAC beverage category? Do they flip all these brands and leverage all these distribution networks to then like you know pump a whole portfolio into these established relationships that they have? Um I mean I think that's where my head normally goes. And like if I if I'm thinking about is it investable or not, like that's what would have to happen for it to be to be investable because they've made all these these asset purchases. And I mean, I don't I don't think craft beer is going to return to its glory days, it'll always have a place, but I you know it's largely gonna plateau. So that's their their big growth opportunity on top of the platform that they created. As I think about the the other assets that they have, I don't know if I see like I don't see all these acquisitions feeding into them. Like they have this pharmaceutical, like kind of distribution arm, they have the international cannabis, like like that's not the big bet. Those those might save the business uh in in a downside event, but I think the the big bet here is THC Beverage being able to leverage the rails that they've built.

AnnaRae Grabstein 39:15

It it makes all the sense because they've got these these well-defined brands, like this idea of a brew dog THC IPA. Sounds amazing. Um so I'm I've been actually waiting for the the THC beer to really to make its entrance. There hasn't been a great one. Um yeah, that's that's the coming together of the strategic growth of getting to learn from and utilize the rails that these alcohol companies or mostly beer companies that they now own have, and then to combine that with what they've learned in THC. I I wonder how how long this regulatory hedge takes for them to truly kind of see it materialize in the market. And and they have been having such intense losses for so long. I don't know how long that can continue to go on uh with their there's just not an endless amount of of capital. And so I I'd be curious, and if and if Erwin Simon would like to join us and tell us what the big plan is on how how the company uh gets out of this of this endless cycle of losses to take all of these really interesting assets into something that can turn into a real a real kind of durable company that makes sense. We we are very open to it. But I think that the optionality into THC is is really is really smart and and they've done it backwards. Like we've we've seen Constellation make make big investments into cannabis, first starting from their knowledge in the alcohol space. And and in some ways it feels like Tilray took this seed of starting as a cannabis company and is trying to become a global beer and pharmaceutical company instead, and and then get to take that scale and and bring THC into it. So I'm I'm I'm here for it.

Ben Larson 41:22

Yeah, yeah, it'll be interesting to watch, especially this year. There's a lot going on if you haven't heard.

Hemp THC Policy Fights Before November

AnnaRae Grabstein 41:30

You want to talk about that? Well, not I mean yes and no.

Ben Larson 41:36

I you know, it's like I I think someone uh reposted one of our recent clips and you know pointed out that um it's defeating to the hemp industry to create beverage carve outs. Um and I think it's an interesting position. Like I don't disagree. Um, you know, I think that having a beverage-only carve-out for hemp is very challenging. I think it does eliminate a lot of businesses. Um, but here's my counterpoint is that November 12th or 11th or whatever it is, is is coming, right? It's there's no guarantee that we get past that and have any semblance of of a hemp industry. Right now, uh hemp industry would be any hemp plant or derivative, uh, as people like to often point to, that is 0.4% THC or 0.4 milligrams per container, 0.3% THC uh or less, right? And that just doesn't create much of an economy at all, uh, beyond CBD and and even questionable how many hemp plants you can grow that actually meet that definition and then have the extract um process not you know fall into a legal gray zone. There are conversations now happening where we know like Howard Kessler and and um his group are are having progress alongside one hemp and you know therapeutic CBD, and that there was the EO that said we want to create space for for these therapeutic products, all fine and dandy, but that in of itself is a carve out, and so I don't see beverage as our vision of a future sustainable in hemp marketplace. Beverage is like a concession of like the opposition of like, okay, like this is not as threatening as all that other stuff um that is currently on the marketplace that is slated to be banned in November. And I think this is gonna be the big discussion uh uh heading throughout the rest of the year from the from from the hemp side uh from the hemp side.

Travel Plans, Feedback, And Closing

AnnaRae Grabstein 44:00

of the industry is there is what people want um there is what we think we can get and then there is what we can get and those are gonna be the things that are are argued into the wee hours of of the morning every night probably um but I want to be very clear like even the alcohol industry they are conceding to what they are hearing nobody wants like super low caps on single served beverages like everyone wants more than that and where I think people are missing the boat is we're arguing about what we're what we're conceding but we're starting from zero like the ban has already passed and if you aren't listening to what Congress has to say and you aren't listening to what the regulating agencies that are in the White House every day like sure you can get a meeting with the White House you can have lunch you can pay$50,000 to talk to congressmen you can play the game but at the end of the day you have to be listening and and I think this is frankly you know the alcohol industry who everyone likes to you know make the enemy um when it comes to these restrictive kind of uh potential language um they're spending a lot of money to to listen the ones that are spending money to make it more restrictive are not out in the open uh and I think that's another important dynamic to know is like there's a lot of conversations that aren't happening in um you know the the different organizations and different groups that are representing hemp uh there are many conversations happening on the hill that nobody knows about but you you can you can start to hear them if if you listen closely enough so that's my that's I'll get off my soapbox that's my monologue um no one thinks that a beverage only highly restrictive uh marketplace is a sustainable hemp marketplace that's not what is being argued i i will leave the opining on the policy path to you but I will comment that I think that accepting reality and leaving denial aside is one of the most important things that we all need to do every single day as as we face change and conflict uh in business and in life. And what you just said to me and what you just said to everyone sounds like exactly that of trying to accept the reality that we're faced with and not be in denial about what November 11th represents and to think rationally uh with with a healthy dose of of acceptance for a very complex web that that is Congress. Yeah yeah more simply put and we know this after advocating for it for for over a decade uh well intoxicating hemp is cannabis congress hates cannabis period that's why we're that's why we're here that's why we get teased with schedule three and then nothing happens uh hopefully something happens i i'm still optimistic but you know we're still here totally we are still here and what are we up to next week um i will be in ventura at hall of flowers ooh yeah should be good uh beachfront um i'll have the camper van it'll be great and um you are also traveling next week right am i or is it the week after you're doing the the convenience event yeah yeah yeah week after so the 23rd through the 25th find me in Chicago I'll be at CSP's cannabis forum uh talking about the future of cannabis and hopefully convenience stores together awesome and lots more events coming up lots of fun episodes um in the hopper and just grateful to still be here so um yeah thank thanks to everybody it's it's fun when we get to do these episodes where we don't have a guest and we try to think about something you guys might like to hear from us. So thanks for tuning in.

Ben Larson 48:35

Yeah and more than anything just uh having some one-on-one time it's always nice I know we can pretend that no one's listening to this well it's pretty easy to pretend um but let us know what you think folks tell us like are these one-on-ones worth your time do you like the cannabis business news roundup this one was a little different we did a deep dive on Tilray but I thought that was a pretty interesting uh a tidbit of news thank you to our teams at Virtosa and Wolfmeyer and of course our producer Eric Rossetti uh if you enjoyed this episode please drop us a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcasts. And yeah until next time stay curious stay informed and keep your spirits high that's the show