My podcast "Cannabis Law in Canada" returns!

Last November, Cannabis Law in Canada, my podcast, my "sandbox" where I get to express myself a little creatively, and get to talk to really great people in long-form interviews about cannabis, came to a halt. (You can listen to the various interviews here, on my website or on most podcast platforms.)

I had a good interview with Matt Maurer, and then with more responsibilities at work and home, I endured a gap of 8 months. No podcasts. I was also tired. I needed a break. The question burning in my mind was, Does anyone care about this podcast? Should I shut it down?

Seven months later, I realized that while there ARE people who care about this podcast, if I don't care then no one will.

So I asked myself, What do you care about? Who do you want to talk to?

Then the answers came.

In the last five years, cannabis has become so mainstream for industry folks (yes, there still is stigma to overcome), with dispensaries everywhere that it appears that there is nothing with heft left to discuss.

And while I know that licence holders are keen to get rid of the excise tax, the 10 mg THC cap and non-recyclable packaging, among a laundry list of other issues facing the struggling industry, there are many great people already covering these issues, including mainstream media, doing great work.

For me, the live issue is access to medicine. There are still people in Canada, the second country to legalize cannabis almost five years ago, who are in pain, and who still cannot get access to the quality medicine they need at affordable (or better yet, free) prices, even after almost 5 years of legalization. What's going on here?

So this month, with a nod to a forthcoming documentary series, my co-producer Jeremy Benning and I released two new episodes featuring Ganjier Matthew Jerome - C.G., R.Kin(i), who dreams of a different kind of legalization focusing on the flower as medicine, not a recreational drug, and Alison Myrden, a global drug law reform activist and retired law enforcement officer who lives with Multiple Sclerosis and incredible facial pain (bilateral trigeminal neuralgia), who needs better cheaper medicine than found in all of Canada's dispensaries, who talks about her activism and longevity due to cannabis and mushrooms.

Matthew and Alison's interviews kick off a new direction for Cannabis Law in Canada: to talk with people who are still fighting, against governments for their access to plant medicine, and with those people in government who have fears for public safety.

I'm thinking of changing the title, too, to Cannabis Law on Earth. I would like to listen to people south of the border in the US and Mexico, in Europe and Asia and really, anywhere where cannabis is found on this beautiful planet.

In the meantime, stay tuned for interviews featuring Owen Smith and Ted Smith, who are not related, who talk about their experiences creating and providing high-quality cannabis medicine to people in pain for decades, and their court battles that took them to the Supreme Court of Canada with a 9-0 victory in 2015.

If you have any ideas for people or issues you think would be a good fit, please send them to rbennett@cannabislawonearth.com. Thank you!