Big Tobacco Is Moving on Cannabis, the Global Strategy Is Unfolding, and Deepak Anand Reveals Where’s Next

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Bryan Fields: What's up, guys? Welcome back to another episode of The Dime. I'm Bryan Fields, and with me as always is Kellan Finney. This week we've got a very special guest, Deepak Anand, global business consultant and strategist. Deepak, thanks for taking the time — how are you doing today? Excited to have you here. Kellan, how are you doing? Deepak Anand: Good things, thanks for having me. Kellan Finney: Doing really well — really excited to talk to Deepak and dive into the global landscape. How are you, Bryan? Bryan Fields: I'm stoked. There are so many topics, and I know we were picking Deepak's brain before we got started — it was like, we should probably just record this, because there are so many moving pieces to this puzzle and we're starting to put it all together. It's really becoming interesting because tobacco is making a little more noise, the European market is starting to make some noise, and I think eventually we're going to get some clarity on how this is all going to shake out — because what's happening here in America right now needs a little help, and it seems like the ocean is parting for some of the other players to come in. So Deepak, before we get started — I'm not going to put you on an East Coast/West Coast question. Let's dive right in. Talk to us about how you found your way into the cannabis space. Deepak Anand: Yeah. So look, I got into it accidentally. I was dealing with a lot of under-insured Americans who used to come fill their prescription drugs in Canada by the busload. I took that model online and started getting into the regulatory space by accident, which got me involved with Health Canada and working on the policy and regulatory side of things generally. And when cannabis was getting legalized, the government reached out to me and said, "Hey, would you help us set up an industry association?" So that's how I got my feet wet in cannabis. Bryan Fields: Perfect. So then take us through some of the clients you work with, how that works, and the roles and responsibilities you help them handle. Deepak Anand: Yeah, look — over the almost decade now that I've been in cannabis, I've worked with large CPG companies that are either interested in the space and looking to understand it, or are very tactile, like operators in North America that are interested in first getting licensed and then eventually going down the regulatory pathway into the various aspects of the businesses we now see them in. So I work with companies of all shapes and sizes — brands looking to enter international markets, Canadian cultivators looking to expand into places like Australia and Europe, European companies looking to import products from around the world, and CPG companies that are targeting the space. That's my portfolio suite of clients, Bryan. Bryan Fields: So those CPG companies, though — are they coming in with a light understanding of "hey, we see this as an opportunity to diversify revenue, maybe grow revenue in some ways, we've got a product portfolio we think fits in"? Is it more of a "do we fit into the puzzle piece," or should we do an acquisition and dive right in and accelerate as fast as we can? Deepak Anand: Well, that's just it, right? At the first level, it's understanding risk. I think even people embedded in the cannabis industry still don't understand there's a great deal of risk — both stigma and risk. There's the stigma element of a large CPG company with a household name trying to get into this industry, and I work with executives on helping them understand what the myths of cannabis are versus the facts. The advantage of operating from a federally legal G7 jurisdiction like Canada is that we've now had over five-plus years of legalization where we can look back and say the world really hasn't ended, the sky hasn't fallen. So it's great to be able to advise people from this vantage point on what those myths and facts are around cannabis legalization. That's where a lot of the conversations start, Bryan. Inevitably you've got a board member who's concerned about cannabis — what about driving, what about all of those aspects. So that's the first element. The second element is understanding the exact regulatory pathway — what's our "right to win" is something I get asked a lot. So those are the two high-level pieces I'm advising on to begin with. Kellan Finney: Has the conversation changed over the course of the decade you've been involved? Is it moving from managing expectations to now being a lot more grounded in what they're looking to accomplish when they evaluate the space? Deepak Anand: Absolutely. They've started to look at the sector from a very mature perspective. It's not just about launching a product and putting it on the market — which, at least for Canadian cannabis companies, is what they've been doing for a long time: put something out, launch a pre-roll, get it out without looking at consumer safety or product efficacy. No one's really having those detailed conversations, or if they are, it's happening at a very isolated, miniscule level — not at the scale some of these large companies operate at. So it's refreshing for me when somebody comes to me asking about safety, efficacy, potency — those sorts of things. We know with molecules like CBD, you could put a thousand milligrams into something, but the bioavailability in the body is very low, so the absorption doesn't mean anything. That's the kind of conversation I'm having with a lot of these companies, which is very interesting. Bryan Fields: Do some of the conversations end up being like, "why are there all these struggles," or are they aware of the chaos the environment currently is? Deepak Anand: Yeah, I think it started off with a bit of FOMO. Early on in cannabis, US beverage companies were probably the most guilty of this — that FOMO of "we need to get into the sector, we're missing out, valuations are going through the roof," and you saw a bunch of money flow into Canada. That has since settled. Other industries observing this weren't immune or naive to it either — they've picked up on it and said, "okay, the longer I wait to put my money into this, the better it's actually going to be for me, because valuations are coming down." Things are getting more realistic. We're starting to distinguish companies that are managed well from companies based on what revenue they're generating. So I think we're at the point now where people have recognized that initial FOMO wasn't really warranted — the wait-and-see approach has actually worked well. Bryan Fields: One of the elements these large-scale CPG companies have is resources, right? They're able to use those resources for persuasion — maybe from a lobbyist standpoint, or for acquiring assets in a down market. Is part of what you consult on helping them use those resources to set the stage for successfully accessing the market? Deepak Anand: Yeah, absolutely — it's accessing the market and understanding what the market's looking for. And the market isn't one-size-fits-all. Depending on regulation and jurisdiction, things are very different. We look at North America, or the US or Canada, as one market, but the cannabis market on a global basis is literally hundreds of different markets. What applies to Denmark is the exact opposite of what happens in Germany, and Australia and Israel are completely different. It gets very challenging when you're a cannabis cultivator in Canada, or anywhere, looking at how to tackle all these international global markets — it's a regulatory strategy unique to each market. We're not at the stage of the international game yet where we have harmonized regulations across the board, where cannabis flower has a monograph that everyone follows and there's a shared harmonization conversation. We're not there yet. So a lot of my work is advising on that. Kellan Finney: How do you go about focusing your clients amid this massive information overload — one minute they're looking at a county in Colorado, the next Denmark, then Australia, and the rules are all different? How do you keep them focused on specific goals and help them figure out, "okay, this market isn't for us, this market is"? Talk us through some of that strategy. Deepak Anand: Yeah, a lot of it comes down to understanding what the strategy actually is. We're past the stage of "I've got 150 million bucks to deploy, where do I put it?" The conversation now is: we've got a business that we run, whatever it is we produce — is it possible to get cannabis into what we already understand and do really well, and integrate it into that? Or do we need to think completely outside the box? So it starts at that basic, high-level strategy question of what you actually want to accomplish. We're seeing this really flesh out with some of the tobacco companies. Look at British American Tobacco and Organigram — they've got something called the PDC, the Product Development Corporation, where people from the UK and that ecosystem are seconded to Moncton, New Brunswick, to actually work on cannabis-specific products. Canada is a great testing ground — it's not a sizable market in the grand scheme of things globally, but it's great for testing vapes and ingestible products and how they interact. So if I'm British American Tobacco and I understand, say, pouches or snus products that are popular across the world now, I want to figure out how to bring that into cannabis. That Product Development Corporation gives them a sandbox to play in and build that knowledge. You've seen the OGI announcements, including recently — they're really making headway, and I think that's true of tobacco and other CPG companies across the board. Bryan Fields: Yeah, the beverage company acquisition for sure is a big step, especially given the beverage boom we've seen. I'm curious how that fits into the bigger portfolio — is it just them taking a swing at the puzzle, or do they have a larger runway where this is the first of several steps, potentially consolidating this market because they think it could put a big dent in big alcohol? Deepak Anand: Yeah, I think they're really trying to understand each category and every segment. If you ask anyone in the industry, hemp-derived THC beverages are where it's at right now — everybody seems to be on that, and we've seen some recent moves. People aren't naive to it. Having Organigram, which has a really high level of understanding of the business, certainly helps. If I'm Organigram, I'm thinking: it's great that I've got this investment that lets me sandbox things with BAT, but I also have shareholder returns and deliverables to give. The most recent acquisition they did — of the Collective Project beverage brand — was a great way to generate serious revenue and also get their foot in the door in the massive US market, specifically in a segment that's booming right now: hemp-derived THC beverages. Bryan Fields: Do you think, from a hierarchy standpoint, British American Tobacco wants Organigram to be in this market and it's a top-down approach, or is it less strategically aligned — more like, "listen, take advantage of this, grow the revenue, grow the business, and if it benefits BAT in the long run, that's good too"? Deepak Anand: Yeah, I think that's very much the case. Organigram doesn't make decisions completely on its own — there are board members on the OGI board placed there by British American Tobacco. So the strategies aren't completely separate. That said, Organigram obviously needs to run its own business. And we're seeing this beyond British American Tobacco too — look at the Altria-Cronos investment, look at Philip Morris International, there's a bunch of tobacco players that are very active. Japan Tobacco too, albeit very quietly — all of those players are active in the sector. The tobacco industry knows that it's a dying business. They've got to replace it because cigarettes are not where it's at. They've done well pivoting to snus and pouch products, but they realize they need to move beyond nicotine into other segments, and cannabis poses a really interesting one for them. So it's not surprising to see, beyond BAT, other players seriously looking at the segment. Kellan Finney: Do you think they're going to look at the agricultural portion of the industry, since it pairs with traditional tobacco cultivation? Is that where most of them will hyper-focus in trying to get into the space? Deepak Anand: Yeah, it's not lost on them that there are still efficiencies to be had on the cultivation and manufacturing side — we were chatting about this a bit earlier. There's certainly value in proprietary genetics; they obviously understand that from the tobacco crop. Cannabis is just another crop, but they understand the value of genetics, IP, and the important things that go with that. I haven't seen anything public that goes into a lot of detail on that, but it's not lost on them that it's an area of opportunity. And Organigram is a cultivator too — they grow product in New Brunswick — so I'm sure the PDC is quite involved in what's happening on the cultivation side. Bryan Fields: They're also not blind to the fact that cannabis companies are in the absolute dumps right now, right? Getting slaughtered, not doing well, to put it lightly. But that's an opportunity in its own right — for potential alignment, potential consolidation, which the industry likely needs. Do you think we're trending toward a consolidation where a lot of these markets are starting to tighten up, and the companies that can be the ones standing should be the ones standing? Deepak Anand: Yeah, you've certainly seen that, Bryan. Earlier this year, Organigram acquired a company called Motif Labs out of Canada, which was really the number one cannabis vape company in this market. That alone made OGI the largest licensed producer by market share. So they're definitely looking at that segment and M&A. I don't think we're done hearing about consolidation — valuations are getting more attractive, and I think what you're starting to see now is a shift toward companies that have market share, good businesses, and smart business plans that are executing, versus companies that are still struggling. So it's the companies doing things well that most of the larger players — whether CPG or cannabis companies — are looking at for consolidation. You'll see more of it in the sector. A market I'm really excited about is Germany, because the amount of growth we're seeing there is insane. It's only a matter of time before M&A really picks up there too — though right now things are probably too hot and valuations need to come down a bit. But it's a market I'm watching very closely from an M&A standpoint. Kellan Finney: Talk to us about Germany. Is it more organic companies from within Germany driving it, or a mix of external companies? I know Curaleaf is the only US company active in Europe, but a lot of Canadian companies are over there too. What's really driving the industry in Germany right now? Deepak Anand: Yeah, let me give you some quick hits on the market. Germany's medical cannabis market is set to roughly 3x by 2027, approaching about a 2-billion-euro valuation. We've gone from 567 million euros in 2024 to closer to the 1-billion mark by the end of this year, and 2.2 billion by 2027 — that's 3x growth, and remember, this is only the medical market. What happened on April 1 of last year was that Germany basically made cannabis no longer a narcotic on the medical side. It had been a severely, highly regulated narcotic substance, much like the schedules we see in the US, and they took it off that control and said it's like any other pharmaceutical. That allowed companies in the market to set up telemedicine platforms and attract patients who want to come in and get this product prescribed, so you're seeing a lot of telemedicine growth. In parallel, there's this sort of quasi-decriminalization — pillar two of the legalization approach — which started as a Canada-style federal recreational program. Very quickly they realized that wasn't possible within the confines of the European Union, so we've seen some rollback of that second pillar. There are some pilot projects and social clubs going on, but generally that's not where you're seeing a lot of growth — it's really the medical cannabis market. Even market-size-wise, 20 tons were imported in 2023, and based on the numbers we're seeing this year, it's going to be over 100 tons. That's significant growth, and it's largely being funneled from Canada, because Canada has these massive facilities that can cultivate at scale. It's a little interesting to me that out of the US, we've really only seen Curaleaf get into the acquisition of 420 Pharma in Germany and Northern Green Canada — really getting into the international market. You haven't seen a lot of MSOs move yet, but I think it's only a matter of time before more come on board, because this kind of growth — you're not even seeing that in the US, and it's only one market. We haven't even gotten to the UK or Poland doing the same thing. There are many more markets within Europe to expand into. Bryan Fields: Do you foresee an MSO going directly into Germany, or partnering with a Canadian company that's already funneling product into Germany? Deepak Anand: Or there's a third option — do they actually acquire someone? The challenge with the US approach so far is that if I'm someone like Trulieve, I have a cultivation operation, but I can't export that internationally — I can export across state lines, but not internationally. So I'm very limited to what I'm doing in the US. The only way for me to go international is really two ways: one, I could do a brand licensing deal, where my products show up in an international market, which we're seeing some of. Or, if I'm a bigger MSO, I can actually go out and acquire someone. What's interesting is that the US and Canadian capital markets are still an appealing way for early founders to get liquidity — the currency US MSOs bring in terms of their paper is really attractive to European and international cannabis operators, because the growth is only upwards as the US moves on scheduling. We've seen this over the last year, based on rumors and announcements alone, stocks have gone through the roof. So there's still upside that companies and founders see in aligning themselves with US companies. I think we'll see more US MSOs start to go international. Bryan Fields: What's the timeframe, if you had to guess? Deepak Anand: It's sort of like asking when the US is going to reschedule cannabis — you know how that feels. It's a cardinal question you never answer in this industry, because you just don't know. Bryan Fields: There's just this thing in the back of my mind — I had to ask if there's a timeframe, because the companies are in the dumps right now. The stock market is down so much that an M&A approach right now could be difficult, because there are just so many other challenges. But you're right — now is the time, with everyone hurting. There's growth at the table, the play was the right play, the growth was the right approach, there were just other factors, and the result didn't work out, but the play should continue to run. It's just really difficult to achieve. Deepak Anand: Yeah, timing-wise, honestly I think right now would be the wrong time, just because everyone in Germany is in such hyper-growth mode, and they're not wrong to stay focused on it — they're doubling and tripling their numbers month over month. Obviously they want to sustain that growth, but at some point there's going to be a peak, in terms of how many patients you can realistically get on board. Probably a year from now is a good timeline to look back and say Germany has proven 3x growth over the last three years — no other market has done that — and it's starting to cool down a little. Is it time to get into some of these markets? I think it will be. Curaleaf has done phenomenally well with their acquisition of 420 Pharma — it's a great company doing some great things on the international side. Bryan Fields: It's really interesting to think about, right? Early in the industry, it felt like Canadian companies got really big, really fast, but couldn't access the US market, and everyone kind of wrote them off — they started growing tomatoes, everyone shredded them. Then US companies were the big ones, and now they're kind of trapped in the United States, and the Canadian companies are back at the forefront because they have access to Germany. It's like a barbell approach, a swinging wheel — such an interesting dynamic given the quick heritage we just talked about. Deepak Anand: Yeah, and if you look at it from a Canadian perspective, the longer that the US takes to do anything on this file, the better it is for us — we're just solidifying our pole position on the international markets. As much as you can talk about Macedonia or South Africa, the quality isn't there yet — they'll get there, I'm not saying they won't, but for the next several years, the longer the US doesn't act, the better off we are. So you're not wrong, Bryan, that Canadian companies are really starting to get back to being very active internationally. You saw Tilray's earnings come out yesterday, and they did really badly in the Canadian market because they're losing market share there, but they're doing well internationally. Same thing with Canopy's financials, Aurora's financials, Village Farms — it's all the same. Everyone's moving toward the international side because that's where you're starting to see the revenue. That 20-to-100-ton number I mentioned is being filled mostly by Canadian companies, and that's where they're seeing the value. What that's doing in the domestic market is interesting, because now you've got a vacuum being filled by more craft, newer, better products for consumers — it's really a win-win from a consumer standpoint too. Kellan Finney: I also think that even if MSOs flipped the switch tomorrow, they'd be at an inherent disadvantage, just from a regulatory standpoint — all the Canadian facilities were built under Health Canada oversight, so they're already built to the same standards EU GMP requires. There's a simplicity to transferring product from Canada to Europe. It's not something MSOs can't tackle, but it's not something you solve overnight. So realistically, the longer it takes for the US to get on board, the more it just looks like the way in is through acquisitions at that point. Deepak Anand: That's a huge point, because people really underestimate the regulatory lift. It's not just the GMP lift — it goes much further than that. Denmark doesn't allow certain pesticides, Germany requires specific microbial standards, the UK has its own quirks. When you go into a cultivation facility, you almost need separate grow rooms for different markets, because each market is so different from a regulatory standpoint. And layer on top of that the fact that the FDA hasn't even regulated any of these facilities in the US — they're operating on a state-by-state license approach, and states don't have the wherewithal for GMP-level compliance. That works for the US, and much like in Canada, Health Canada standards aren't GMP or EU GMP level either, but at least it's a higher standard than a state-by-state one — it's an easier jump to EU GMP from there than from the US side. I think US companies are going to need a long time before they can actually export, even if a scheduling change allowed it. It's not going to happen overnight — you need the manpower and knowledge that's being developed in Canada right now on how to get GMP product overseas, which is why you saw Curaleaf acquire Northern Green Canada. NGC was a tiny company that nobody really knew about internationally, but Curaleaf saw it as a massive advantage — not just being able to move US staff into Canada or Germany to operate it, but the actual expertise and knowledge of the NGC team. Bryan Fields: Yeah, Boris Jordan wasn't shy about that — that was exactly the asset he wanted, for exactly that reason. He basically said, "I'm not doing that the hard way — it's not worth it, we can just buy this and go," given the time element. Deepak Anand: Yeah, and Bryan, if you look at the numbers now — I was looking at some reports — what NGC is putting out is significant. They've got a huge white-labeling business doing work for other people, but also serving Curaleaf and 420 Pharma directly. Those numbers are pretty significant. I'd argue that acquisition is going to pay off for them in very short order. Kellan Finney: That's good news — we like good news. Bryan Fields: Well, the part that's frustrating for me — shoutout to Curaleaf, that's an awesome move to be the first one over there — is that the US is just getting locked out here, right? Internationally, Germany for sure is exciting, the numbers are astronomical, but there are other countries too that I know you're excited about. I'd love to hear you share a bit about those. Deepak Anand: Yeah, absolutely. A lot of attention usually goes to Germany, but another market that's booming right now is Australia. Germany has stayed more dried-flower-focused, just because of the regulatory structure and pharmacists having to compound the product, which has limited what you see there. You are starting to see more of the 2.0-style products from Canada pick up in Germany, but the market where it's really picked up is Australia — gummies, live-resin gummies, live-resin vapes, all of those 2.0 products are really gaining steam there. So right now there's tremendous opportunity for companies with a good brand or products like gummies and vapes that are in demand in the Australian market. There are a lot of really good companies doing amazing things there. And you're seeing other international markets open up too — Israel still has a thriving import market for Canadian cannabis producers, and then you've got Poland, the Czech Republic, and the UK all importing products. The UK has now started talking about pastilles or gummies, which is the next wave and next set of conversations I'm following, because it's also a lot harder from a regulatory standpoint to get an EU GMP shatter, vape, or gummy into an international market than it is flower — flower is easy to convert because it's an active ingredient, not much to it. Once you get into a gummy and making it GMP, it's everything from inputs to processes to machinery to packaging to stability. That's where the game gets really interesting, and there are limited companies playing in that space. Bryan Fields: Are the different countries — this is maybe a bad question — are they limited, like Australia, in the number of companies that can operate in that space, or is it limited by the rules and regulations required to operate? Meaning, is Australia limiting things by only issuing ten total licenses, or do the rules and regulations require certain things to operate that naturally limit total participants? Deepak Anand: It's the latter, and I wouldn't say they limit it — it's limited by the regulatory lift being so high that the number of players who can actually participate is small. But there's no arbitrage on licensing, no limit on how many people can import. The government in Australia is very clear — the TGA says as long as you're complying with GMP standards, you can send stuff in. So there's really no cap; it's just that the number of companies able to do that is very small, because nobody has that GMP process in place. Try getting a piece of gummy equipment validated and certified — it takes a lot of time and money. So you're seeing very few companies do it. Aurora has done a great job on that side — they recently acquired a company out of Australia called MedReleaf, which is doing really well servicing the Australian market. You're starting to see Canadian cannabis companies that have been making gummies pivot to GMP and supply Australia and the UK, which need those GMP products to come in. Kellan Finney: A lot of these are medical markets. What's the conversation around recreational use? Is it kind of ignored, or are people warming up to it? Is each market its own little pocket? Deepak Anand: Yeah, there are two things. On the recreational side, Switzerland is doing a really good job with their pilot projects — they've had them running for a few years now and have released some reports recently that, again, say the world hasn't fallen apart internationally, which needs to be said — the more countries that say it, the more people seem to listen. Switzerland has even gone further and said they're going to pursue a full Canada-style legalized program soon; they'll be debating it in the fall and coming out with legislation after that. That's happening because they don't have the EU overhang, since they're not technically part of the European Union, so they can go further out on a limb. That recreational conversation is happening in some smaller, like-minded countries too — Luxembourg, Malta — but I feel like it's still some time away before you see a full federal program like Canada's. And selfishly, if you're a Canadian company exporting, that's great to see, because once a country has a recreational program, like we saw in Canada, the medical market tends to die down a bit. So it's great to be able to service these international medical markets from Canada — any trade, because of UN treaties, is only allowed for medical and scientific purposes, meaning I can't export cannabis from Canada into a recreational market in Germany or Switzerland; that would have to be domestically cultivated. That carve-out is great for us, because the adult-use conversation isn't progressing at lightning speed in these other countries, which lets us gain market share. And from a consumer perspective in Germany, it's so easy now to get a prescription — you go online, talk to a doctor through a telemedicine console, walk into a pharmacy, and walk out with your product. It's de facto legalized, even though it's technically a medical program. Bryan Fields: It's so interesting, right — the regulatory lift could be a strategic advantage, because the hoops you have to jump through separate the companies that can operate in these markets. But the strategic advantage also moves in waves — right now Health Canada has set the bar so high that these Canadian companies can operate in Europe and take advantage, strategize, and use their resources to build all these assets. Which continues to make me believe that the tobacco companies, understanding tobacco is going down and seeing all this other growth, could keep cobbling together pieces and say, "we need to be here and here," because if they connect these puzzle pieces, they'll have the full global scale to operate across the globe. Deepak Anand: Yeah, fully agree, Bryan. We're starting to see more and more of that happening now. Look at Organigram and the moves they're making — that's a classic example. And Organigram isn't the only company; you'll start to see more of this happen across the board. Bryan Fields: Do you think they'll feel more comfortable being public about these moves, or do you think they're already public and people just aren't noticing? Deepak Anand: It's the latter — there's already a lot out there. There's obviously some hesitation from these companies, particularly given the political landscape — lobbying around alcohol and tobacco is an issue, there's legislation tied to that. So there's reason to be cautious and skeptical if you're one of these companies. But you are starting to see more of it. I think people just aren't connecting all the dots necessarily, and it's not as open as the Organigram-BAT relationship, but there's more and more out there now. Kellan Finney: It probably won't be as open until there's a demonstrated precedent that being open about it actually benefits the stock. That's my guess, right? Deepak Anand: Well, exactly. Also remember, there are international issues — BAT has managed to navigate this well, but the UK has something called the Proceeds of Crime Act, which basically means if an activity is illegal in the UK, it's treated as illegal everywhere for a UK business, even if that activity is legal where it's happening. It wasn't written for cannabis, but cannabis gets caught up in it. So BAT has to keep whatever profits are made at Organigram within that entity, so as not to run afoul of it and bring it back to the UK. There are still international regulations that need to change before you'll see this happen en masse, and because these companies are public, some will be hesitant, because they don't want their bank accounts shut down. And again, there's the US domino not falling — US banking has quite significant overreach internationally. You don't want to deal in US dollars, because even if you're a UK company dealing with Canada in US currency, you're suddenly subject to US law, even though you've never crossed a US border. There's a lot of leakage from US cannabis criminalization into international markets. Bryan Fields: Do you think there's a possibility the tobacco companies could operate from a FOMO model — "we saw this company making these moves, acquiring good assets, we should look to acquire X, Y, and Z to protect potential revenue gains in the future"? Deepak Anand: Yeah, I think you've seen that — the Motif Labs acquisition by OGI is exactly that kind of move, Bryan. I think other companies' strategies may differ a bit, depending on their specific fit. For Organigram, because it's a very public company involved in the recreational market and wants to solidify its number-one position in market share, that acquisition made sense. For other companies, it may be more medical-focused, or more wellness-focused, and you'll see potential acquisitions built around that. At this stage of the game, people are savvy enough to understand you're not doing an acquisition just to get a license or enter a market — that was a 2017-2018 approach. Now it's more about how something actually adds value to what you're doing. If I'm one of these companies trying to develop a product and you can show me bioavailability going through the roof, I may be very interested in that. Bryan Fields: So when these clients contact you, how do you feel comfortable making these recommendations, knowing it's like — left or right, then two lefts or a right — there are so many moving pieces and variables, and so much depends on the information they bring you? It has to be a very detailed, rigorous, thorough process before you can even provide a suggestion. Deepak Anand: Absolutely. There's a lot of fine-tuning of strategy at the outset — what do you actually want to do? It's almost like the GMP conversation — people come to me and say they want GMP, and my first question is, why? If you're only operating in the Canadian market, it makes zero sense to carry the overhead of a GMP facility. It's the same conversation with a bigger CPG company — what do you actually intend to achieve? I get that you want to be in cannabis, I get that your core business may be struggling, but what specifically do you want out of this? Is revenue generation important? How important is regulation to you? Because it's not a question of if you'll face regulatory friction, it's a question of how much. Are there things like the Proceeds of Crime Act in the UK that will stop you? Are there certain US markets you may not want to touch because of federal illegality? All of these layers go into the decision-making process, and once you work through them, you come out with a refined strategy — this is exactly where my right to win is, this is what I want to target, and here's how I go about achieving it. That's where I add value, but there's a really important discussion around working through all those challenges before you get to what you're actually after. Kellan Finney: The timeline for that has to be a couple of months, maybe a year, right? Because there are probably conversations where a client says, "I don't believe you, Deepak, that can't really be a thing," and you say, "come check it out, let me show you," and then you go back to the drawing board. Is that the typical timeline you set as an expectation with them? Deepak Anand: That's it — absolutely. The FOMO, as I said earlier, is gone, so there's no major rush to get something out, at least with the companies I'm dealing with. That really helps. It's why I really divide cannabis companies from non-cannabis companies — cannabis companies are very focused on this quarter, on revenue, on how to boost international expansion right now. So I've got two sub-sets of clients, really — one very focused on the near-term, and the other taking a more long-term view. Bryan Fields: Is there ever a situation where strategies intersect and end up working against each other — where one part of a large company recognizes that the part they want to grow might be hurting another part of the business? Deepak Anand: I haven't come across that yet, but there's got to be — I'm not involved at that level of detail with some of these companies, but I'm sure it's inevitable that it happens. Kellan Finney: How do you balance, say, two clients with similar backgrounds who want the same outcome? How does that work? Deepak Anand: Yeah, I get your question. It's mostly about differentiating strategy and not doing the same thing for different companies — especially in cannabis, where you've got multiple clients effectively doing the same thing: growing and selling cannabis. The conflict is more real on the cannabis side, but everyone's found their niche. One client might be a really large cultivator operating at scale, another might be really small and doing craft cannabis — those are two completely different product categories. Someone doing flower versus someone doing vapes or gummies is a totally different segment. That's kind of how I balance things on my end. Bryan Fields: Do the international countries look at the US and its hemp and state-by-state challenges with disbelief — like, "we shouldn't make these mistakes, we should understand the plan is the plan" — or are they just kind of ignoring it, like, "listen, they're chaotic, that's the United States"? Deepak Anand: There are so many layers to that answer. From a Canadian standpoint, the US hemp situation and where the Farm Bill ended up, particularly around the Delta-8 stuff, hasn't gone unnoticed. A lot of countries realize they need to get ahead of this and don't want that same Farm Bill loophole to happen to them. They don't want these new cannabinoids that seem to pop up every other day — a new cannabinoid that does the same thing as Delta-9 but is derived from hemp. So countries are getting proactive about shutting that down and saying any other cannabinoid besides CBD isn't going to be regulated differently than THC. Canada did that very early on. Europe had an HHC issue in the past, which woke people up and made them realize they needed to ban it quickly, and we saw at the UN level most recently that HHC was put on the ban list, treated similarly to THC. So countries are paying attention to the US. From a cannabis policy perspective, the US isn't really a model to emulate, because there isn't a federal market, but it's not lost on people that models like California, and Canada to a large extent, offer lessons — what's worked, what hasn't — that you can take the good and leave the bad from. I always tell governments and regulators that cannabis legalization is a process. It's not an event, it's not a date — you don't just legalize cannabis and then you're done with it. You have to constantly go back, see what worked, what didn't, and adjust. That's the exciting part for me in advising international governments — there still isn't a perfect model. The US actually has a tremendous opportunity to take learnings from each state and apply them federally, and Canada has that same opportunity — what worked, what didn't, let's build this well. Bryan Fields: I could only hope. So take us through the GCRS event in DC that you recently attended — what do we need to know about what happened there? Deepak Anand: Yes, I think the Artemis Group put that together along with a company called The Liaison Group — Saphira Galoob, who I believe you've had on the show before. Saphira has some great contacts in DC, so we brought people from all over the world to Washington, DC, and had meetings at the Senate and in Congress, talking to a few senators and legislators just to make them aware of what's happening with cannabis on the international stage. There were a lot of interesting conversations around the legalization of cannabis internationally, and really just educating Washington, DC on that front. Kellan Finney: Were they receptive? Was it welcoming — were they taking notes? How were those conversations? Deepak Anand: Yeah, there was definitely a lot of interest. A few senators came by and even spoke. The key is being able to convert people who aren't already converted — that's sort of the goal. What's coming out of the GCRS is that there are going to be white papers put out, and the hope is those white papers get read by more members of Congress and senators, so they start to realize what's happening internationally. So far it's been a very US-centric conversation — how is this impacting my constituents, people going to their senators and congressmen about their own challenges. Now you've got this international body coming and saying, here's how it's working in Denmark, the Netherlands, Australia, Canada, and here's what's working and not working. It's good to put that out there, and I think there will be a lot of attention on those white papers. Bryan Fields: Were there conversations where people were surprised to hear that other countries are doing it much better? Deepak Anand: Absolutely, there's definitely some of that. But there's also the US perspective — there's been so much going on between the FDA and the DEA. We had the former head of the FDA do a keynote lunch session, and she said a lot of these recommendations were already put into writing by the FDA, and now the DEA needs to act on them. So there's some awakening among people who are naive about cannabis, but people within the FDA or DEA aren't naive to this — they've been looking at what's happening internationally for quite some time. The FDA did a great job putting together their opinion for the DEA on where cannabis scheduling should go. I think there's still a lot more politically, from a bureaucracy standpoint, that needs to happen in the US, and that's where the rubber's going to have to hit the road if you want to see real change. Kellan Finney: Do you see any catalysts in the next five or six months that could help facilitate some of that change? Deepak Anand: Well, there was that video that recently came out about Canadian companies "taking over" the US — I don't know if you guys saw it. That seems to resonate with the resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, so maybe that becomes a catalyst — "the Canadians are taking over the world," both from a capital markets and a pure revenue standpoint. Maybe that resonates. Hopefully that's a catalyst. We'll see. Bryan Fields: Elon's not showing that on our feeds. One year from now, what's changed? Deepak Anand: Well, let's see how it plays out. Look, one year from now, I think you've got a robust, thriving German medical cannabis market. You've got other international markets picking up — I think the UK is probably the next domino to open up from a medical legalization perspective; it hasn't fully matured yet. I see more and more countries looking at legalizing cannabis, at least for medical purposes, and that's really where a lot of the international trade opportunity is, because UN treaties don't allow trade around non-medical products. So that's what I'm really looking forward to over the next year. Bryan Fields: I love it. So Deepak, for our listeners who want to get in touch, who want to explore international markets and need your help — where can they find you? Deepak Anand: I'm quite active on Twitter and LinkedIn, so happy to have people reach out to me on either of those channels. Bryan Fields: Cool, we'll link it all below. Shoutouts — thanks for taking the time, this was a lot of fun. Deepak Anand: Thank you for having me.