Live From Ignited Chicago

SPEAKER_05 0:00

Hey, everybody. Um, thanks for being here. My name is Anna Ray Grabstein, and I am one of the hosts of the High Spirits podcast. We record every Tuesday and we have insider discussions about what's going on in the industry. So I'm super excited to be here live today recording. And um I'm here with one of the founders of the Ignited conference, Patrick Flame.

SPEAKER_03 0:23

Thank you. Thanks. Thank you. The smattering of applause, I will take it. Thank you. Thank you so much, Kens.

SPEAKER_05 0:29

Um, Patrick, how's the conference going for you?

SPEAKER_03 0:31

It's going so well, and we're so grateful for all the participation, all of our lovely attendees. I mean, we the the activations that Ellie and I talked about doing this year, I see them being enjoyed, right? The espresso bar, the the market meetup lounge. It's been so much fun to be with you guys. Um, excited to announce Miami next, right? The next big ones in Miami.

SPEAKER_05 0:53

Nice. When is Miami?

SPEAKER_03 0:54

Miami's March 24th through the 26th, right? So uh kiss your end of winter blues goodbye and come to Miami.

SPEAKER_05 1:03

Miami in the spring, end of winter sounds absolutely fabulous. I will do everything I can to be.

SPEAKER_03 1:10

I see Sean Cradle dancing, so I'll take that too.

SPEAKER_05 1:13

So we are going to be doing some little blitz interviews today instead of our long-form discussions. And I have two fun questions that I'm going to be asking everyone that I talk to. So I'm wondering, Patrick, if I can throw you to the fire first.

SPEAKER_03 1:29

Hit me. Let's go.

SPEAKER_05 1:30

Awesome.

AI Turns Attendee Data Into Strategy

SPEAKER_05 1:31

So the first question is about AI. And it's about how AI is actually showing up in your business.

SPEAKER_03 1:37

Oh my God, what a good question. Patrick Ray and I were just talking about this. The amount of attendee data that we have, right? The amount of session-specific data, topics that people are interested in, uh, sessions that that strike the fancy, our survey that we send out at the end of this conference, you'll be getting that tomorrow morning, right? We collect all of that, and now we're starting to feed that into Cloton, right? We're starting to feed that into AI to help understand what is it that people want? How did they feel about the experience? Did they get deals done? Was it impactful in certain ways? We have to do that in order to stay current, to stay impactful, to stay fresh, and to keep this good for all of you.

SPEAKER_05 2:20

And were you not doing that type of analysis before you had access?

SPEAKER_03 2:24

All by hand. Yeah. Right? Before before Claude, before AI, and all the at least accessible AI that some engineer didn't have to build for us, right? Um, all of it was hey, I'm gonna look at this number, this report, and I'm gonna extrapolate all of that data by hand.

SPEAKER_05 2:41

Amazing. Well, so the mixed question is totally unrelated to AI.

SPEAKER_03 2:45

Cool.

Schedule III And New Capital

SPEAKER_05 2:46

And it's um one year from now, if federal policy change, how will the federal policy changes that have been proposed affect the market dynamics one year from now? How will things be different?

SPEAKER_03 2:58

Market dynamics. You know, I'm gonna answer this from the financial side for a second. I think what's interesting about where we enter that conversation at Ignited is that when we started the Benzinga conferences a decade ago, this conference, the expo piece of it, didn't exist. Uh, the the entire point was connecting public companies to investors, family offices, asset managers, um high net worth individuals, right? And we were designing meetings for those folks to interact and meet. What I find super interesting about this new uplisting uh and rescheduling moment that we find ourselves in is that now some of those new investors are gonna come into the space. It may be a second, right? In fact, some people are saying 12, 18 months, right? But those asset managers, those funds, though those other banks who are not covering the space yet, the Goldman Sachs of the world, right? I think a year from now we're gonna see a different landscape for the capital markets in cannabis, which will obviously filter into every other part of the industry.

SPEAKER_05 4:06

Well, and so you brought that into we're standing here recording on the media stage in the expo hall at Ignite. And um a lot of the exhibitors are independent ancillary businesses that um serve folks maybe with um professional services or with equipment and things like that. And do you think that the landscape of those businesses is going to substantively change because of capital access?

SPEAKER_03 4:30

Without a doubt. And I'll tell you why. I think the the worst kept secret in the world is that without an influx of capital, none of the operators can afford new products or services, right? Um, and I shouldn't say none, right? I would say a select few can afford to can afford to to have new equipment, better service, better, better equipment, better all the stuff, right? If we want to call it that. Uh from my perspective, more money in the space, more investors present at conferences like this, that's good for everybody, right? And an expo floor like this becomes even more impactful if you have real money moving the industry forward, allowing that operator to invest in services that professionalize their business, equipment, tech platforms that make the consumer experience better, right? The product better. Um, ideally, the industry grows up even further.

SPEAKER_05 5:28

Very cool. Any last thoughts before we say goodbye?

SPEAKER_03 5:31

Just that you're cool. Thanks for doing this.

SPEAKER_05 5:33

Oh, thanks. This is fun. Yes. Really excited to welcome our next guest, The Gauntlet.

M&A Realities In Cannabis Data

SPEAKER_05 5:39

Uh, why don't you introduce yourself with your name and your company and what you do?

SPEAKER_01 5:44

Great. I'm Ed Keating. I'm the chief economist at Emerald Intel and formerly was the co-founder of Cannabis Media. So I get to research, come on podcasts, conduct podcasts, and uh just do lots of work around the cannabis data, of which there's quite a bit.

SPEAKER_05 6:01

Awesome. Um, I have always found you, Ed, whenever I see you around the industry to have really interesting things to say, tidbits of information. We love data on high spirits and we love walks and dorks and nerds of all time. We consider ourselves um in that category. So thanks for joining the party. Happy. Before I get into our blitz questions, uh you you talked about the company that you were formerly a founder of, Canabiz, uh, and now you're with Emerald Intel. Um, and I'd love to hear a little bit about that process and what that meant for the company. Um, we are at a capital conference. There's a lot of discussion around MA. Uh so why don't you tell us about the experience that you've been through over the past year?

SPEAKER_01 6:47

It's been a fascinating process to go through. Um, we started last April when I got a phone call from the COO at Emerald, who, you know, I talked to a conference and was like, yeah, yeah, what do you think about maybe combining forces? And my co-founder and I had already been going through that process, and I'm like, okay, let's have a conversation. So it went on and on, and uh, we closed last October. But what was interesting, and as you and I spoke last night, is that my co-founder and I knew or were contemplating that over the period of six months. We told our staff the day before or the day of that this was happening and who we were merging with, and uh yeah, there was a lot of surprise. So it was definitely a fascinating thing. But I look at it really in in three frames. Like now it's what do we do with the data and the software? So we've been working hard on that to make sure that we produce the best set of data between the two products, which has been great. The second is the customer set, how many customers overlap? And if they did, were they using us for the same things or different? And then lastly, what do we do with the staff? And and luckily, you know, six months in now, we've got a great team of people who came over from cannabis along with me that I, you know, from what I can tell and from what I have seen, they're doing great work. So far, it's really worked well and smoothly. I mean, definitely some hiccups here and there, but the team's working really hard to get to the one platform so that then we can continue to build and grow.

SPEAKER_05 8:19

I think a lot of executives could probably relate to this idea of not being able to tell their team during a diligence process that they are going to merge with their number one competitor or the company that's most similar to them. Uh, but it's it's an interesting call out, especially right now in cannabis where there is so much consolidation and MA activity going on. So I think that the insight around that as a concept and and what you went through in thinking about, oh my gosh, how is the staff going to respond when they hear that we're merging with our number one competitor is is really interesting. What did people think when you told them?

SPEAKER_01 8:57

Uh most were shocked. I I can't think anybody said, yeah, we thought that might happen. I I think said no one ever. So it was more the shock of really? And you know, the sort of the the fun and interesting part is suddenly when you're at the same table and being able to swap stories of you know, people that you were staring daggers at across the trade room floor are suddenly like, oh, that's how you guys do that. That's kind of cool. So you know, we've had a lot of those epiphany moments now as we just work together as one team instead of battling it out every day. But you know, to your point about the industry, you know, one of the reports that cannabis had done over the years was the point of sale report where we call all 12,000 stores and ask who they're using. We found 79 point of sale software vendors the last time we did it in 24. That number is still really high. And if you look at those that do menu work, there's like a half a dozen of those. And I just wonder, as the industry likely consolidates, how many of those guests will be here next year saying that, yeah, we combined with our competitor and it's a great situation. And, you know, I hope if that does occur, but I think it probably will. The industry can only support so many of us.

SPEAKER_05 10:08

Awesome. Thanks for sharing that. Yeah. So now we're gonna jump to my blitz questions.

AI For Change Detection And APIs

SPEAKER_05 10:14

Um, the first question is how is AI showing up in your business today?

SPEAKER_01 10:20

It's showing up in a lot of ways. We've been using it for a while as a way to help us gather some data. Um, and it's also being used to analyze data. So where it comes in most handy for us is things like change detection, like is there new data, new license, new changes? So by uh uh harnessing uh AI to do it, uh we can do a lot of things more quickly. And for me, as somebody who has to write a lot of content, do a lot of analysis, uh if I don't have to do every stupid graph and table because a computer can do it way faster, that's great. So my cycle time to get work done is better. And I just see this continuing. I mean, we're here with our CEO, and we have a lot of calls where people just want the API of the data. Like, we love your interface, Ed, but we just need the data. And we think there's going to be more of that as people get more comfortable using AI tools for their own analysis.

SPEAKER_05 11:18

How are you guys thinking about the way that you roll out AI in the company from an enterprise management level?

SPEAKER_01 11:27

Is it it's certainly an HR kind of issue and a technology issue because you know, I think we've all read those reports where companies are suddenly realizing, oh my God, we're spending so much money on our AI cost or we're burning through Critus like crazy. So I think you know, a few people have sort of hit the limits of you know, needing to expand their budget. So we're looking at what is the best approach for us. We have some people who use it a lot, like it's their whole day. Others of us sort of dabble in it throughout the day. So we're trying to find the right balance to make sure that we're using it to the best of its ability, sort of most efficiently and effectively.

SPEAKER_05 12:04

I think that that's a really common challenge right now. People didn't realize how many tokens it was gonna cost to produce some report, or you start to realize, oh wow, is this actually saving me money or is it costing me?

SPEAKER_01 12:17

And especially if like if you if you treat it like a chat and just keep going back and forth and it gets longer and longer, every new response requires it to go through that whole chat again. And if you have things that you've uploaded, yeah, I've learned the hard way, you're gonna burn through your credits and suddenly like you need to take four hours off, Ed, and come back later.

SPEAKER_05 12:35

People are starting to get so used to having AI write that email for them that they're not even trying to write the email themselves. So yeah, I think it it will be an evolution uh as as costs become more transparent and clear. Right, right, right. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:50

I mean, some of the costs now remind me of like Lexus Nexus in the 70s and 80s, like, oh, the bit count is this, or you printed this many lines of reports and it's gonna cost you this much. We need to get away from that. Sorry.

SPEAKER_05 13:01

All right.

Hemp Ban Uncertainty And Schedule III

SPEAKER_05 13:02

Second question. Um, one year from now, how will the federal policy changes that we're looking at right now with Schedule Three and the upcoming hemp ban in November have changed the market dynamics?

SPEAKER_01 13:18

I think there will probably be drastic changes. I think there's a lot of regulatory uncertainty. People don't know how to fill out those new application forms. I was just in a session where some said you should fill these out, and others said no, you shouldn't. So until we get clarity, which the market really craves, I think it's gonna be tough. November with hemp, it's a giant business. I I was at the Ignite conference in Ohio a few months ago, and some estimates thought that like two billion dollars in beverages were being in products are being sold in that state, and then suddenly they couldn't be. And were they gonna squish all those sales into just a few hundred stores? So I think it's still gonna be messy in a year, but I also believe we'll probably have more clarity if the federal government can really make good on their schedule, which I think is aggressive, but you know, we'll we'll see how that plays out.

SPEAKER_05 14:15

Very curious. Uh, nobody can predict the future, but I always like to try because it's kind of fun. Um well, uh Ed Keating from Emerald In Intel, thank you so much for being here. Round of applause, folks. Thanks, Ed. Have a good one.

SPEAKER_01 14:30

Thanks, Anarog.

SPEAKER_05 14:31

Yeah. Okay, welcome back, everybody. I have brought my next guest up to the stage. Uh, but why don't you introduce yourself? Um, tell us what company you're from and what you guys do.

The Business Of Making Gummies Easy

SPEAKER_00 14:43

My name is Sarah McLaughlin. Um, I'm a dietitian and one of the co-founders of MeltMake. And what we do is we make a gummy base, which standardizes and expedites the gummy manufacturing process. Um and yeah, we just make that whole process easier. I like to compare it to chocolate. You know, people make chocolate from scratch or they used to until discs is Hershey actually came out with the idea of a meltable disk. And we kind of were doing the same thing with um with gummies, just standardizing and making that piece easy for people.

SPEAKER_05 15:17

Amazing. And you said you were a co-founder. I'm curious to learn a little bit how many different companies are you working with um in the cannabis industry?

SPEAKER_00 15:27

I know many, many hundreds. I don't have the exact numbers on the s on the science side of things, but I know we're in the many, many hundreds. Um so it it's super interesting because we get to work with really small companies all the way up to larger MSOs, um, and just got to hear a lot of the challenges in the cannabis space, especially when it comes to making edibles.

SPEAKER_05 15:49

Why do you think that gummies have been the the prominent edible form factor um for so long as the industry has grown and evolved?

SPEAKER_00 15:58

I uh I sort of wondered that when we when I saw the data on how you know it's 80% of the market, edibles market is gummies, and some people even estimate it higher. You're like, what is it about it? But the the more I got into the gummy industry, I realized I'm like, there's so many things that make manufacturing really easy. Um you don't need to wrap them. You can mass produce them. They've got a long shelf life. Um, they're easy to dose, uh homogenize. So there's a lot of things that once you start writing them all out, you're like, of course, like this is a no-brainer. You can scale it easily, you don't need to buy a lot of equipment. Um, it's just easy, there's not a lot of barriers.

SPEAKER_05 16:40

That makes a ton of sense.

SPEAKER_00 16:41

And consumers love them.

SPEAKER_05 16:42

I I love a delicious gummy personally. So yeah, and we just as as a we've we've got someone in the audience telling us how good your gummies are. So amazing. And that's Claudio from Buttist. What's up, friend? Hello, nice to see you. Um, well, so now I'm gonna move into my fun blitz questions for you.

AI For Writing Support And Chatbots

SPEAKER_05 17:03

Um, and the first one is how is AI showing up in your business today?

SPEAKER_00 17:08

Uh so I'm not very technologically savvy. I'm the first to admit it, but um, I think for me, I'm actually dyslexic and I've always struggled with like certain things in business, and it's usually around writing or putting things together and getting my thoughts put together. And so for me, that was like I jumped on board right away because I was like, oh my gosh, like something will write a letter, you know, for me and give me an outline. Um so I started using it there, but we're using it more and more to kind of filter through data. Also, we're looking into training at chat bot and or help us with customer questions because having somebody answering the phone all day and sometimes we miss people. We want people to be able to get quick answers. And not everybody wants to pick up a phone. I'm a phone person, but not everybody's a phone person. I think if you're below 30, you really don't like to pick up the phone.

SPEAKER_05 17:57

That makes a ton of sense. The whole chat bot thing is interesting. I think it's a blessing and a curse. Yeah. Like we've all been on the other side of chatting with a robot and wishing that there was a human.

SPEAKER_00 18:07

I think the key is to also have a phone number there, right? Yeah. It's like, okay, if you really don't want to talk to somebody, try this first, but you can call us. Like we'll we're a real person will answer.

SPEAKER_05 18:16

Absolutely. And how are you guys thinking about it uh from an enterprise level of how you're rolling out tools for your team?

SPEAKER_00 18:24

We are um we're starting to just look into it with our CRM, actually. And one of the things that we're doing, and I I think you would follow this. Yes, I know this would fall under AI, but like our phone calls getting logged, taking note takers, all of our meetings from our notes. So that's really been our first step is just keeping records of our conversations and who we're talking to and to be able to refer back and keep track of things better.

SPEAKER_05 18:50

Oh my gosh, I love the note taker. Yes. And those action items that come out at the end, come on. Absolutely. Cool. Well, um, next question. Um, one year from now, looking ahead with all the federal policy change that we are currently in the middle of with Schedule Three, um, of the hemp ban that's scheduled in November. Um, if we meet again in June of 2027, what are your predictions about how the market dynamics might be different than they are today?

SPEAKER_00 19:21

You know, we're non-plant touching um an ancillary product, but we're really hoping that we see that translate as things kind of ease up, translate into just uh our companies that are purchasing from us just having more cash flow um and just you know, not struggling as much. Um, but we are in a unique situation where we really can just focus on what we need to focus on and just kind of let the cards fall where they do. You know, it's but we also are in the nutraceutical space, so uh we're diversified enough that I'm probably not gonna be the best person to predict it, but I'm hoping I'm hoping it goes in the positive direction.

SPEAKER_05 20:01

Yeah. How how can we not hope for the best, right? Yes. Um, absolutely. And you said you're in the nutraceutical space. My guess is that as a as a formulator, you m most likely have been serving clients on all sides of the cannabinoid industry, both hemp and and regulated cannabis. Is that right?

SPEAKER_00 20:19

Yes. The majority is definitely the regulated cannabis, though. Yeah. Hemp has been a smaller piece.

SPEAKER_05 20:24

Have you guys been nervous about this upcoming change and what it might mean for your business?

SPEAKER_00 20:29

Yeah, we looked into it and it it's it's a small enough piece of our business, and we're growing fast enough that we feel like it would it would be a bummer, but at the same time, we'd be okay.

SPEAKER_05 20:39

Yeah. Good. Well, I wish you all the best. Thanks for participating in the fun today. And um, thanks for having me. Yeah, thank you so much. Have a great day.

SPEAKER_02 20:50

Okay.

PR Meets AI And The Media Shift

SPEAKER_02 20:51

Um Good afternoon.

SPEAKER_05 20:53

I'm Anna Ray, co-host of the High Spirits Podcast, and I'm back with my next fun quick interview. Um, why don't you introduce yourself, tell us what company you're with, and what you do.

SPEAKER_03 21:05

Hey Anna Ray, how are you?

SPEAKER_05 21:07

Hey, how's it going? So excited to see you.

SPEAKER_02 21:10

I'm good, really exciting to see you. Uh, my name is Jordan Eisenstadt. I'm a senior vice president at Merino PR. Um, and I run a practice that's uh we work with cannabis, psychedelics, and emerging industries companies. Uh broadly speaking, we do a lot of work with all types of companies. Um I founded the cannabis practice there about 10 years ago, and we've been rocking out, having fun, working with different companies up and down the supply chain, B2B, B2C. Uh, I also started a group called Jews and Weed, and we just had a very successful bagel bash. So I'm uh I'm riding high. I'm riding high in.

SPEAKER_05 21:45

Awesome. Your bagel dash was great. It fed me both coffee and bagels this morning. So thank you so much for that.

SPEAKER_02 21:52

Thank you for being there.

SPEAKER_05 21:53

Yeah. And and you know, it's fun to get to have you on the show today because uh Jordan has been a behavior. The scenes guy for us, and some of the guests that all of you listeners have heard have been because Jordan is working with them and has pitched us on their awesome story or some fun conversation. So that's been really cool.

SPEAKER_02 22:12

Um well thanks for uh putting a spotlight on me for a minute.

SPEAKER_05 22:16

You you deserve it. Well, so uh I'm going through some fun little blitz questions here. Um my first one is how is AI showing up in your business today?

SPEAKER_02 22:31

AI is having a huge impact on the PR and communication sector. It's actually been a big priority at the firm. We have like a whole working group that's been working on it. And, you know, it's changing kind of like the way that we operate. It changes, you know, some efficiencies. And but there's also the flip side of it, which is that, you know, we do a lot of writing, we do a lot of pitches, we do a lot of op-eds. And so like we're finding that the people who review it, whether it's the reporters or the journalists or the editors, they're putting everything through AI. So like AI is it's helping and it's hurting. So, but we're adapting, and that's the main point. And so, like, there's some you know, interesting new tools that we're working with and like trying to really leverage AI quite a bit.

SPEAKER_05 23:15

And so you're talking about how the firm is implementing it. Is there an enterprise strategy? I know a lot of the people that listen to our show are thinking about how they are kind of rolling it out to their teams. Um, we heard someone earlier talk about kind of the the complex dynamic of realizing how expensive it is to use some of these tools or to over-index on the amount of tokens that you're rolling out. And so it's like, where is AI helping? Where is it hurting? And is is there an internal ambassador that is creating the AI structure for the team?

SPEAKER_02 23:50

There actually is an internal AI ambassador. Um I I think we call him the AI guru. Um, it's actually our head of creative and brands and strategy. And so he's been really focused on AI and how we can bring it in. I actually had a session with him last week where I just got on like the enterprise claude account. And so we're working on like implementing that and how do we like put our Slack in, right? How we get like our whole SharePoint in and some of the things that you can do. I was like pretty impressed. You know, it's about implementing it and really making it happen. I mean, there are a few like early examples, we're using it with reporting. You know, reporting can be like a very like labor-intensive activity, like if you're reporting on like, you know, PR results for like AI does pretty well. And like uh sud's a great job with some of the design. So it's happening, it's rolling out. Like by the end of this year, it'll be fully implemented and rolled out. Um right now it's sort of making its way through the senior folk. It's going well.

SPEAKER_05 24:52

From a PR perspective, in terms of actually earning media, are you finding that there's just a lot less stories being written by actual humans?

SPEAKER_02 25:03

Yes. Um AI is definitely taking on more of a role in actual reporting. And I think it will continue to be that way. And I think also reporters are figuring out how to leverage and use AI. So, you know, it's just part of the game now. It's I think everyone's incorporating it.

SPEAKER_05 25:22

It's surprisingly, or maybe not surprisingly, in asking everyone this question, I think there is a healthy level of acceptance that it's here, it's not going anywhere. And so it's not like anybody has said that AI is not a part of their business. So I guess no big surprise there.

SPEAKER_02 25:37

We've been talking about it for so long, you know. Like I watched, I I waffed. Do you remember The Matrix?

SPEAKER_05 25:44

Obviously, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:45

I watched The Matrix with my son, uh, who's 10 years old, and like kind of blew him away. It actually like kind of does stand the test of time. But they talk about, you know, that was 1999. And so like they talk about like the birth of AI is what birthed these machines, you know, and yeah, eventually took over the world. But like, we've been talking about this for like a long time. I feel like it's been in the conscience, the public conscience for a really long time. And now, but now it's finally here in ways that people are really like using. But we've been talking about it for 20 years or more. Wild times, huh? Wild times we're living in. Yeah. Wild times.

SPEAKER_05 26:20

So

Policy Predictions And Market Momentum

SPEAKER_05 26:21

um this the next question is a bit of a prediction. So um if we meet again one year from now, next June, and we consider all of the changes that are being proposed with federal policy change, Schedule Three, the pending hemp ban in November, um, how will the market dynamics have shifted from where they are today?

SPEAKER_02 26:45

Well, I feel like this is something you guys talk about a lot on the show, uh, with like, you know, beverage policy. I do think that that there will be some kind of like a last minute play. It'll go down to last minute, but they'll somehow postpone it, delay it, and figure something out. You can't put that cat back in the bag, you know. Like I just don't see how it's possible. Because it'll just the market will just continue if they if they do, and I think eventually they're gonna figure that one out. Um I think the medical the medical rescheduling, the rescheduling is messy, and it's gonna be it's gonna be a challenge. It's gonna be a challenge because I feel like there's a lot of misunderstanding of the program, of the DEA program. I think it's gonna be a slow roll. Um adult use. I really hope that these hearings, you know, work out and that we get to a place where there's rescheduling. I just I have a I have a hard time believing that that's actually what's gonna happen. But you know what? Incremental progress. I used to work in government, and so like it is very incremental. And I know we've been like waiting and waiting and waiting for stuff to happen for so long, but like this is this is the process, you know, and it's it may take another decade, I hate to say, but like it's it's like we're making good progress, actually, by the standard definition of how the federal government and things work. Like, we're making pretty good progress. Um, I'm excited about Virginia. There was a deal announced with Virginia. So, like, as I look, you know, I'm more East Coast space, so like I think Virginia is an exciting state to watch. They're gonna have a lot of stuff rolling out next year.

SPEAKER_05 28:19

Um Well, so I think I'll I think I'll push a little harder on you in that you've you've given me a little bit of predictions of how you think the policy is gonna go, but here we are at the Capitol conference. Most of the the folks here are operators, investors, service providers to the licensed industry. Do you think that there's gonna be any substantive kind of new dynamics playing out in the market for businesses as a result of the policy changes?

SPEAKER_02 28:49

I feel like what I have seen at this conference is like it it's high energy and it's like good, good energy, good vibe. And I feel like there's some money coming back into the market. And so when that happens, like and I you know, I know we see it in our business, like things are improving, you know, on on the cannabis side. And I feel like there's a lot that of growth that's happening right now. And I I I feel like this is like this conference for me and for a lot of other people, I feel like people are like having like a lot of really good energy. And so a year from now, I think it's gonna keep on moving on up. I think we're moving in the right direction.

SPEAKER_05 29:26

Moving on up, more momentum, yeah, more acceleration. Awesome. Um, thank you, Jordan Eisenstein. Thank you, Anna Ray. You're awesome. Awesome. Okay, I'm Anna Ray, co-host of the High Spirits podcast, back with my next guest. Um, why don't you introduce yourself? Tell us what company you're with and what you do.

SPEAKER_04 29:46

Hi, Anna Ray. Thanks so much for the intro, the opportunity, and to ignited for having me. My name's Lucas McCann. I'm the CSO and co-founder of Can Delta. We're a regulatory and scientific cannabis consulting company uh with focuses across all the states.

SPEAKER_05 30:01

Cool.

Canada’s Export Playbook For The US

SPEAKER_05 30:02

And you guys are working on DEA registration, so you're paying a lot of attention to what's going on with Schedule 3, is my understanding, right?

SPEAKER_04 30:09

I think there are more questions and answers about the DEA, but we're paying a lot of attention to it. And I think one of the important things about this is that to be able to operate in many states as a consultant, you have to be very good at um, I think, information retrieval, but also more importantly, pattern recognition. And the pattern recognition component, I think, spurs from the fact that we've seen legalization happen in other countries. Um, Uruguay was the first G7, Canada was the second G7 country to legalize, and we extrapolating some data sets as to what this could potentially look like. And that's why we're excited about DEA registration.

SPEAKER_05 30:45

Awesome. And I know that you are a Canadian or you live in Canada, sorry.

SPEAKER_04 30:51

Yeah, for profiling, yes, I'm Canadian.

SPEAKER_05 30:53

Well, and so you have seen Canada go through a process that has unlocked international markets and and that I think a lot of American operators are excited about what this could mean for more of a global um opportunity beyond beyond our borders. Do you think that's coming?

SPEAKER_04 31:11

I I do. Uh so for some context, I worked for Health Canada, which is actually the regulator for cannabis in the Canadian industry. Uh Health Canada has a mandate, you know, to to they implemented legalization after several failed iterations of it, where they themselves were the producer, then they commercialized it for medical, and then decided to eventually commercialize it for adult use in medical. With that adult use passing in 2018 and again in uh well 2017 and again in 2018, there was also a pathway that was put forward that allowed Canada to be able to access the medical cannabis global market, and export permits could be applied for and approved to jurisdictions such as Germany, Australia, France, the UK, Spain, Portugal, and others. Um and the Canadian market, when there was the shakedown and gravity took hold of that market, it was through the process of exporting and accessing those global markets that allowed many of the small lean operators to continue operating at a profit. And that is coming here to the US. We're very excited about that opportunity and very excited about the new things that this registration will bring, which is really just the tip of the iceberg as I see it.

SPEAKER_05 32:15

Very cool. Well,

AI Reads Regulations Faster Than Humans

SPEAKER_05 32:17

I've got two fun blitz questions that I'm asking everybody. Uh and the first one is uh how is AI showing up in your business today?

SPEAKER_04 32:27

AI shows up in some capacity, I think, in every aspect. Uh we handle a lot of uh operational support and marketing, uh, which I think is is is great for spurring ideas or strategizing. So I would say AI is like a big kickstarter for conversations. But one of the reasons why I think AI is very popular is it has the ability to go through large amounts of data, pay hundreds of pages of regulations that would take humans weeks to do, it can do in like 10 seconds. So that ability to people to digest the large data sets is incredible. It can minimize the amount of touches we need to do with with legal and and how much lawyer help we need. So I think lawyers will be one of the industries great, like that industry will be very impacted by AI. Um, but you know, again, it still is very much in the phase where you need to human check everything and you know, double check that, you know, you're going down the right path. And that's where you know you need the human touch still.

SPEAKER_05 33:22

I definitely believe in the human touch. Um, I have to say, I am totally distracted. We're in person, and um, there is a caterpillar on your suit. And we're on the seventh floor of a high-rise building in Chicago, so I don't know where it's come from.

SPEAKER_04 33:39

So I actually uh I found this caterpillar when I went out for a coffee. Uh, I didn't realize that it had attached itself onto me, but I think that's actually a sign that you know we're all supposed to be here chasing the purple butterfly.

SPEAKER_05 33:50

Caterpillars are pretty magical. It's it's like the one of the most transformative creatures that I can imagine. And I'm watching it crawl around on your jacket. And I also like that you don't seem to be bothered by it.

SPEAKER_04 34:02

I'm not at all bothered. This is uh, if anything, an omen to today, the inflection point that we're at as an industry. Uh, we've got so many great people here today from various aspects of the industry, but if this is a changing point, a time of transformation, because three things are happening right now. We find cannabis classified in three different sets of schedules. We have Farm Bill, we have Schedule One and Schedule Three. And it's transforming all into a sort of one direction, um, away from something that might be ugly, like Schedule One, into something that's much more beautiful and has applicable value and medical use.

SPEAKER_05 34:39

This is the most incredible metaphor that I could ever imagine for a bug being on your jacket, and leads us perfectly into what my second question is, which is um, it's a prediction.

Interstate Commerce And A Bold Bet

SPEAKER_05 34:52

And so if one year from now, in June of 2027, we meet again and um and we think about all of the upcoming federal policy change, the implementation of Schedule Three, um, the pending hemp ban in November.

SPEAKER_01 35:09

Yep.

SPEAKER_05 35:09

How might the market environment and the dynamics for folks that are here at this conference and in the industry broadly have changed as a result of these um federal policy changes?

SPEAKER_04 35:19

The market dynamic will shift in such a way. I think a lot of people who are either uh or who are hemp stakeholders are probably going to transition into cannabis. I think we're gonna see a lot of that. I think we're gonna see a lot of specialization um um of those folks who are coming into the industry. Uh we're seeing markets continue to open. Virginia's announced today it's unbeiling a new bill for its framework, which is showing that we're still seeing this legalization brush fire take hold of the country. But by 12 months from today, I think we'll have interstate commerce near ubiquitous and uh export will be not just a thought, there'll be a framework that has been contemplated as to what this will look like and a pathway for people to go across overseas.

SPEAKER_05 36:04

You just said that interstate commerce will be ubiquitous in one year.

unknown 36:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 36:10

Wow, that's a that's a bold prediction. Well, let's look at the cannabis industry. We're we're the kinds of people, um, maybe myself excluded or not, that, you know, typically tend to ask for forgiveness instead of permission. So I would predict that, you know, once people have registrations completed, that's just going across the borders. And then people will just sort of figure it out afterwards.

SPEAKER_05 36:29

Wow. Well, Dr. Lucas McCann and his caterpillar, uh, thank you so much for joining us today.

SPEAKER_04 36:36

No problem. If you'd like to join me or my caterpillar friend, I'm running a petting zoo. I'm at booth 1206 down there. Would love to chat with you. And thank you so much, Anna Ray, for having me.

SPEAKER_05 36:44

Absolutely. Have a great day. Thanks.

Closing Thanks And Where To Follow

SPEAKER_05 36:47

Well, to everybody that tuned in today um and stopped by these live interviews at the Ignite conference in Chicago. Thank you so much. I'm uh Anna Ray Grabstein from the High Spirits Podcast. To all of our listeners out there, um, stay curious and keep your spirits high. We are with you every Tuesday recording live on LinkedIn and on YouTube. And please follow our podcast on um Apple and Spotify and wherever you pick up your content. Uh, thank you so much.