Episode Transcript

Trevor:  Kirk we're back.

Kirk:  Hey Trevor how's it going?

Trevor:  It's going really well. So today on the line we've got Daniel Bear. We've talked to him before. My notes say last time it was Episode 122, A Survey to Change the World and he at that point was on with a pharmacy prof from the East Coast Lisa Bishop, this is... Same but different. Him on his own with a couple sort of side projects slash just interesting things he's taught talked and written about. Before we let Daniel introduce himself, I'll just say he's a PhD in social policy from the London School of Economics and Political Science, 20 plus years in cannabis research mode. I don't know if there's a whole lot else we need to say about Daniel ahead of the thing and any other two cents before we let Daniel talk.

Kirk:  Well, he is the founding and principal consultant of his private self-employed practice as a consultant. Responsum?

Trevor: Responsum.

Kirk:  Yeah. So that's important. Yeah, he's pretty much considered a cannabis expert. And here he is discussing his expertise on Reefer Medness The Podcast. I'm the registered nurse. I'm Kirk Nyquist.

Trevor: I'm Trevor Shewfelt, I'm the pharmacist, and let's go to Daniel

Daniel Bear:  As you said, I'm a cannabis researcher. I've been in the field for 20 years now and I've worked in all different sides. I started off at the ACLU in the U.S., the American Civil Liberties Union, doing civil rights cases around cannabis and drugs policy issues there. Moved into doing my doctoral work around the policing of drugs and now focus my work on a lot of cannabis education, cannabis policy, and associated drugs policy issues.

Trevor: Very cool. So we're gonna start with, everyone likes acronyms, MCBM, Mindful Consumption Benefit Maximization. Because anyway, I kind of thought this was one of the themes of a recent article you wrote on LinkedIn. What is that? What does that mean?

Daniel Bear:  Yeah, so MCBM stands for Mindful Consumption and Benefit Maximization, and the idea behind that really is, I'd say, the culmination of several years of thinking and work where, you know, I know what I grew up with in terms of cannabis education. You know, I was in the U.S. Growing up in the 80s, and we had Nancy Reagan and DARE and Just Say No, and that didn't help me when I was a teenager. Consuming cannabis, right? I didn't know how to do so safely. And so I did stupid stuff like, you know, smoke out of a crushed Coke can or something, right, which is just really, really bad for you. And, you have some of the work that we did about four years ago, building the weed out misinformation campaign, which has a website and tool for bud tenders and consumers that really got us to the idea of thinking beyond the prohibition mindsets around cannabis and got us thinking about how do we talk about benefit maximization? And benefit maximization is sort of akin to harm reduction but starts from the idea of how do we make this the best possible experience for someone, which implicitly invokes harm reduction, right? The best possible experienced involves reducing harms. That got us sort of halfway to the mindful consumption benefit maximization approach. But we knew with weed out misinformation, there was something missing. And it's that front side of MCBM, mindful consumption. So you can tell people, here are the ways in which you will have a safer, more enjoyable experience. But you have to first understand what they define that as, what their experience wants, what they want their experience to be. And for that, mindfulness plays a really important part. So the idea there is that. People are mindful about their consumption. They're thinking through, why am I doing this? How am I do this? And if we can get them to engage in that process, and we all do this to an extent, but to actually set down a process whereby someone says, what do I want out of this experience of smoking this joint? Why am I this? What do I hope to achieve out of it? And once you understand and define those parameters for yourself, then you can then identify what the right ways to maximize the benefits of that experience will be and also reduce the harms. And I think about this as a very important element because, you know, if we're just mindlessly consuming drugs and I, you think about coffee, right? So many people pour themselves cup after cup of coffee without thinking about it, right, and they're not thinking about me. Yeah, I'll tell you, one of the hardest things I ever did was reducing to nothing my caffeine intake for a while there and oh that was rough but you know we reach for a cup of coffee. And actually, many times what we want are different things. Mostly it's stimulation, but sometimes coffee is there to soothe you when things are tough or it's there to stimulate you and keep you awake after a long day. But sometimes people drink it first thing in the morning without even thinking about it, it's just reflexive. And maybe actually, if they were mindful about their coffee consumption, they would ask, well, why is it the first thing in the warning I'm so tired and feel the need to do this, what is it in my life that I'm actually not getting enough sleep? Am I, you know, having? Stress about the upcoming day? Do I need to do things that maybe put me in a more positive frame of mind and not just rely on the caffeine itself? So I think there's a lot of ways that we can employ this. We've used mindful consumption and benefit maximization right now for cannabis, but I think it applies to a lot other areas as well. with that I will stop my monolog.

Trevor: Yeah, no, no. No, that is super cool. And Kirk and I talk about this a little bit on and off the air. If you do any cursory Google search for like cannabis literature, the first 18 things that pop up are all about cannabis harms. How is this harming someone? How can we prevent the harm? You know, too many young people or too many people with heart conditions. So I like this whole standing on a head about, you know. Maximization of benefit and mindful consumption. It's a terrible analogy, people hate it when they compare alcohol to cannabis, but I'm going to anyway. Everybody, you know, we all know people who use too much alcohol, but on the other hand, there's lots of people who, you know at the end of a day, they have a glass of wine, they have beer to just sort of relax in the end the day. And that's not a bad thing. There are many people at a social situation. The first thing they do is they have Hey! Shot of something that calms them down and makes them more social.

Daniel Bear:  A social lubricant,.

Trevor: A social lubricant, That's the word. And we all seem to understand that that is a benefit. Now there is a bazillion negatives to alcohol, but we all seemed to understand as a society there is some social and even there's some benefit to alcohol. All the people who want there to be zero alcohol out there, don't shoot me. This is just accepted in society. So But yeah, it's very cool to talk about the benefits of cannabis, like not even medically, just mindful benefits of cannabis. I really like this mindset.

Daniel Bear:  Yeah. And, you know, those, those benefits are defined individually. It's not me or the research teams that I work on defining those benefits. The mindfulness allows the individual to identify what it is that's working for them and what's also not working for them, right? If they, if they engage in mindfulness practices. And say, actually, you know what, what I'm, when I'm seeking from the cannabis is actually something I could seek elsewhere, or I'm trying to make up for a deficiency elsewhere in my life, and cannabis might not be the right tool for that, then that's fine. Now I know that when I was a young person, I was, I started consuming cannabis because of PTSD and a traumatic brain injury, and that's a very, very serious assault. And I consumed way too much cannabis because it It helped me deal with the PTSD, it helped me... You know, deal with the feelings that I had. And you know what, to be frank, it probably wasn't the best approach for me. I could have, had I better engaged or had better counselors, I had some counselors who weren't particularly effective or empathetic, which is odd for a counselor, I know. Or maybe I was just 16 obscenest, and I don't know. But, you know if I had been engaged in some mindful practices and someone had said. Instead of what they did say, which was, you know, you don't smoke cannabis at all. It's going to kill you, rot your brain, whatever. Instead of, they had said, well, why do you think you're consuming? What is this, what is this providing for you? Maybe that could have started a conversation that would have reduced my cannabis consumption. And while I think that in the longterm, I probably wasn't too negatively impacted by um, high frequency cannabis consumption at that age, um, maybe a bit, I don't know, but I think overall it might've been a different trajectory. And part of the challenge with MCBM, the push back that I've received from folks, um is that there's a lot of folks who are very anti-cannabis and you know, you just mentioned this, there are harms associated with cannabis, particularly now with the, uh, high amount of high THC products on the market. Um, you know, young brains and high THC are not a great combination in the best of circumstances, uh, and particularly when there are individuals with a history or family history, uh of mental illness or psychopathy or things like that, we know that there are very high risks there. And so if we can help people engage in a mindful practice and avoid some of the harms we do know about, then that's a public health win. And by asking them, what do you want out of this experience? How can we help you obtain that experience? Instead of starting with the harms, which has been the traditional approach, I believe that we're better able to engage individuals and actually bring them into a discussion about what those potential harms might look like without making that a stigmatizing and fear-based discussion.

Trevor: No, and that segues nicely into one of the parts of your article that sort of caught my attention. Kirk and I have talked about this sort of anecdotally, you know, as two old men, you maybe we're a little off the loop, but when I was on a recent fishing trip with some buddies of mine and when Kirk, when he goes, travels across Canada, he stops at every pot shot that'll let him in and talk, we're constantly amazed by the level of THC, the infused joint, the... You know, you can grow into 27 to 30% ish, but you know, now that we're getting infused, we're going 30 and 40 and higher percentage THC, which, uh, you know, that's way too much for me. I've, I've tried. I didn't, I didn't like it, but again, maybe just cause I'm an old man, but there does seem to be this push towards how much THC can we pack in there, you know what, again, terrible analogy, but reminds me back to when I was a much younger person, the whole idea was to buy alcohol with the highest percentage alcohol in it so I could get drunk the fastest. I don't do that anymore because it wasn't pleasant. I didn't like the taste. Like when I consume alcohol now, I actually quite like a beer, you know, a beer with flavor that, you know, is four or five percent and I'm happy. I like the flavor. I don't fall out of my chair. I kind of feel that sort of where the smokeable end of the cannabis market is kind of going now is how much THC can we pack in there and other than just being, you know, a grumpy old man, that doesn't seem like it's a great way for the industry to be going, does it?

Daniel Bear:  No, I think that the very high percentage of products out there, flower in particular, that are over 30% THC is a bad sign. My understanding of the industry is that those products command a higher price and given the tight margins that producers and retailers are operating under, they want that higher priced product in order to stay afloat. I think partially this is an issue of education, partially it's an issue of market economics, but the research is clear, very high THC products, particularly on younger brains, are where we see the most risk around cannabis. And so when I talk to people, one of the messages that I reiterate constantly is that a more balanced product with the minor cannabinoids is going to give you a better experience, but also potentially lower your risks. Now. Some people, you know, I know there's many medical consumers who need high THC products. And unfortunately, I think prohibition, you know, the golden rule of prohibition is that, you know, The more you crack down on it, the higher the price and the higher the purity, right? So I think prohibition put us towards this very high TH C mindset. But I like to ask people, You know, you don't go looking for a dessert and picking a dessert based on the amount of sugar that it has, right? You, you want something that is not over overly powerfully sweet. Some people like that. Some people don't most of the time, you don't go shopping for that. And B buying your THC, buying your, uh, your cannabis based on the amount THC really is a short-sighted thing because you think about it, the way our bodies are designed, the endocannabinoid system has a limited number of receptors. And we do know that some of the minor cannabinoids go to other receptors as well. But primarily, if you're looking at THC, CBD, and the others, you're look at a limited set of the CB1 and CB2 receptors. So think about it like this. You can bombard those receptors with one chemical, THC primarily, and flood it. Or you can bombard those receptors of the variety of chemicals. And the way I like to analogize that is to is a salad dressing analogy. So you can make a salad addressing entirely out of vinegar, right? Splash some vinegar on lettuce, you've got salad dressing. But that is gonna be way too tart and the experience is not gonna be all that dynamic. However, if you take vinegar and you add oil and something slightly sweet and something maybe like some mustard and some pepper and some garlic and stuff, all of a sudden now the combination of those is going to present an entirely different experience on that salad than just pouring vinegar over it. And that's the way to think about THC and the other cannabinoids that are there. Your experience is so much more well rounded with a balanced or a product that not just a simple distillate of THC or you know, some Keef sprinkled on top of a joint. The infused products are there. Some people like them. Some people need them. That's fine. I'm not saying you can't or shouldn't ever consume those. Personally, not my cup of tea, but you know I'm, I'm talking about prohibition here. But I think we need to think about how we're educating people, particularly new consumers, and saying what is it you're looking for in this experience. If you want to get totally blasted on THC and the effects of THC, there's a product for that. But I think a lot of people are actually looking for something else. And I can't tell you the number of folks I've listened to who said, yeah, I take like one tiny hit on a distillate vape pen or one tiny hint on a joint and then I put it and then I have another tiny hit. Next day because it's just so strong. And I asked them, well, why don't you just buy a less strong product? Why don't go get, there was some pre-rolls I saw the other week that were I think eight or nine percent THC, relatively high CBD. And I tried one and it was lovely. It was quite nice. It was very mild and balanced. And for what I was looking for from that experience, which was sitting in my backyard, doing some reading and some gardening, it was lovely. It was perfect. And so I think we need to think about how are educating people and then also as i mentioned earlier what the market forces are that are pushing people to try and sell these products that they think they can get a more premium price for.

Trevor: You were just the master of the segue because that leads me into, so this has been, since 2018 we've been legal and potshots have opened everywhere. For a while people were complaining there was more potshots in Manitoba than Tim Hortons. I don't know if that was quite true, but it caught some headlines. They didn't all do that well. Some even huge companies didn't do so well. There's a bunch of bankruptcies. Some people blame taxation. So what's and like you said, there seems to be a push towards the higher THC to squeeze a little bit of profit out. What's what's been going on that way?

Daniel Bear:  Well, I would start by first defending the idea of the over-saturation of, particularly in the retail side of things. You know, last numbers I looked at were about 2,700 stores across Canada. And that has reached a saturation point. I think we're going to we're already starting to see a small dip from from what I heard from some industry folks. I think we're gonna see more of that as five and six and seven year leases expire on stores. But that that saturation was actually, I I would argue, a good thing. And there's been some research that has shown that that saturation was effective in bringing consumers in from the illicit market and bringing them into the legal market without having the, at least from a public health standpoint, the argument of bringing in new consumers who were not already consuming cannabis. So you brought in current consumers, you didn't suddenly see this huge rush of new consumers, though we have seen a small increase overall. Uh, and that was very effective because the shops were so close. And one of the things consumers repeatedly say is it's price and availability. And so, you know, here in Toronto, um, we had an issue that the city of Mississauga, which is the, you now, the second largest city in Canada, if I'm not mistaken, um and you know a butts, uh, Toronto had for the longest time, uh prohibited legal cannabis shops. And so you had individuals who were either going to the illicit market or going to, you, know, elicit dispensaries. And when they lifted that there was a surge in stores and I think that was overall positive thing to bring people again out of the illicit market. But the big challenges that I've seen and in talking with folks in the industry more, the challenge in selling cannabis has come from so many different angles. You know, we legalized and had this duality, right, where we wanted to pursue a very uh, you know, uh, classic sort of late, late stage capitalism model of, you know, push out this commodity to as many people as possible and have minimum wage retail workers sell it. Um, you, you it's the, it's, the best buy approach to selling cannabis, right? It sells many electronics as possible. The people who are selling them don't need to be super well informed, although many of them are and take their own training to do so. Um, but you know that way, you don't have an expert as opposed to going to the old school stereo shop, right. Thank you. In doing that, in pushing out that model, we paired that with a public health approach, which put very tight regulations on the storage, on the transportation, on the production, on security, on auditing, all of that. Those two things don't sync up very well, and that's really a problem. I was speaking with someone who worked on the federal legalization and she said, our job was never to make sure people made a profit on this. Our job was to legalize it, make sure it was safe. If people can make money off it, great, but that wasn't the job of legalization. And I think that shows, you know, there's a lot of people who went into this thinking that they would make a quick buck off cannabis and then realized the challenges and the dynamics here. And then at the same time, there was a lot of tech bros and people with no real cannabis experience. Who said, I'm going to dominate the market and become the Uber or the Amazon of cannabis and build out way more square footage than I can actually ever sell cannabis plants for. Uh, and then that showed that they had, you know, didn't know what they were talking about, weren't growing great cannabis. So there's a whole mixture of forces here, but it comes down to our conflicted nature in my mind. We wanted to legalize, but we wanted to appease business and public health at the same time. And that's quite difficult. I think if you look at places like Germany, their legalization model, much more focused on the public health questions than on the commercialization. If you look at the Dutch pilot project that's ongoing where they've required 10 municipalities to only buy from legal sources for their coffee shops, that's taking a semi-commercialized model but still focusing quite heavily on a regulated, limited industry. Malta, you're looking at the cannabis social club model there which is really a non-commercial model. So there was a lot of other approaches we could have taken. We decided to take this and frankly, uh, the Uruguayan model was the only model we could have looked at, um, for our own experience. And that one again has its own limitations. They're primarily having sales through pharmacies and registered purchases, which means that when you go and buy cannabis in Uruguay, you have to sort of become, you know, you get put on the government books and a lot of people don't like that. Um, and so while they do also have cannabis social clubs, they're quite limited in size and unavailable to operate. So I think we've just got a lot market forces working together and. You know, it's... I'm thankful that I'm not in the industry right now, that I am not trying to produce or sell cannabis because it's a very tough place to be in and I think that there's some significant policy shifts that we could incorporate that would both produce better public health outcomes but also better stability for the market.

Rene:  While we're going to pause things there, our conversation with Daniel Bear, he'll have a lot more interesting insights to share with us in E162 Part 2. Thanks for listening to Reefer Madness, the podcast. I'm Rene, back here in the studio. For those of you listening in real time, Merry Christmas from all of us here at Reefer Medness the Podcast!

Trevor: You were just the master of the segue because that leads me into, so this has been 18 years now, 19 years, since 2018. Well, Rene can make me sound like I know what I'm talking about. So 2018, we've been legal.