Mr Gudwudz sits down with Brad Poulos of Toronto Metropolitan University. You can find Brad at bradpoulos.com.
Brad Poulos — a former tech founder turned entrepreneurship professor who built the first cannabis-business program at a Canadian university — walks Mr Gudwudz through how Canada legalized cannabis and what the U.S. can learn from it. Production is regulated only at the federal level (one national rulebook) while distribution is left to the provinces (13 different approaches, from Ontario’s fully private ~1,600 stores to Quebec’s ~200 government-owned outlets). Brad argues the retail market is oversaturated and unsustainable, names the three federal rules he’d scrap (childproof flower packaging, the flat $1/gram excise tax, and tobacco-style advertising limits), and makes the case that normalization is slow but effectively irreversible.
One Rulebook to Grow It, Thirteen to Sell It
Because drugs and alcohol are regulated federally in Canada, cannabis *production* — growing plus every derivative product — follows a single national set of rules, which Brad notes actually makes life simpler for producers. *Distribution*, however, is handled by the ten provinces and three territories, producing several very different retail regimes: fully private, hybrid, and government-owned.
The Oversaturation Problem
Ontario went fully private and now has roughly 1,600 stores — Brad’s line is that there are “more places you can buy cannabis than you can buy beer.” Quebec, next door with a bit more than half the population, runs government stores and has around 200. Brad, a self-described free-market capitalist, still concedes Ontario’s private free-for-all is oversupplied and “not sustainable.”
“We have more places you can buy cannabis than you can buy beer in Ontario. And that has to shake itself out, because it’s not sustainable.”
Brad Poulos
The Excise Tax That Helps the Illicit Market
The federal excise tax is a flat $1 per gram, set when cannabis averaged about $10/gram (so ~10%). After massive overbuilding crushed wholesale prices to $3–$4/gram, that same dollar is now a huge share of the price — undercutting the government’s own goal of eliminating the illicit market by handing organized crime a price advantage.
Childproofing a Substance With No Lethal Dose
Brad’s sharpest contradiction: cannabis has no LD50 — no known lethal dose — and flower isn’t even psychoactive until it’s heated, yet every gram must ship in childproof packaging. Alcohol, which absolutely has a lethal dose, does not. He’d keep childproofing for gummies (they look like candy) but calls childproofed flower senseless.
Tobacco vs. Alcohol as the Wrong Analog
Canada modeled cannabis advertising rules on tobacco rather than alcohol. Brad argues the *use case* is far closer to alcohol, so cannabis should inherit alcohol’s lighter advertising regime. The host adds his own struggle: promoting a smoking accessory gets him banned or shadow-banned the moment copy mentions “smoking” or cannabis.
“A Gateway Off of Opioids”
To the old “gateway drug” claim, Brad flips it: cannabis is a gateway — off of opioids. He ties the persistent stigma to time (alcohol has been legal a century), U.S. federal prohibition, and Canada putting a former Toronto chief of police in charge of legalization — the minister who said, to Brad’s lasting irritation, that they were trying to “legalize cannabis, not normalize it.” —
“People believe cannabis is a gateway drug. And I say you’re right — it’s absolutely a gateway drug. It’s a gateway off of opioids. That’s what it’s a gateway to.”
Brad Poulos