“The industry, at least as it evolves in different countries, needs to start to look at Canada, and I think a perfect place to start is the regulatory side... There wasn’t a roadmap for us to follow; we were the first G7 country to have legalized cannabis at the national or federal level, and I think that’s a significant milestone.” 

“We’ve got a diverse set of talent across the country that is very specialized in understanding cannabis, and I think that’s what we’ll be exporting, quite frankly, is that know-how, that talent, that knowledge, on the international stage. While we may not be able to export a lot of physical product itself, outside of medical, I think we’ll be able to export that intel, that IP. And we’re seeing it…there’s tons of companies on the global stage coming here to be able to set up because we’ve created that atmosphere. So, I think we’ll see more of that IP, that talent, being exported out of Canada, because we’ve just been in it for so long and we understand it better than the global stage. And I think Canadians, generally, will be able to stop Europeans or Americans from making the same mistakes that were made in Canada, because we have the benefit of hindsight.”   

– Deepak Anand

This week’s guest, Deepak Anand, was named a top cannabis industry player by the Financial Post, and deservedly so. He founded the Canadian National Medical Marijuana Association and has guided the development of medical cannabis regulations at all levels of government in Canada, taught courses on professional management of medical marijuana, and been a member of multiple business and non-profit boards in the sector.

Most recently, Deepak co-founded and now serves as the CEO of Materia Ventures, which aims to enable global access to medical cannabis by having best-in-class cannabis extraction, processing, and distribution—done to EU-GMP quality standards. Materia’s team brings their expertise in manufacturing, processing, extraction, regulation, import, distribution, and retail to operations across Europe.

In this episode, Deepak discusses his own career shift from pharmaceuticals to cannabis as well as attitudes toward medical cannabis, illicit markets, GMP production standards, and much more. A self-proclaimed expert traveler with expertise in the medical and adult-use regulatory environments around the world, Deepak brings global examples to his analysis of areas where Canada has set the roadmap, and other areas where the country needs to catch up.

This episode was recorded in July of 2021.