True Patriot Love - February 07, 2026


Canada’s Cannabis Revolution： Legalization Success or Failure？


Episode Stats

Length

23 minutes

Words per Minute

218.42445

Word Count

5,172

Sentence Count

4

Misogynist Sentences

2

Hate Speech Sentences

2


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.480 hello my fellow patriots i am brady wedham and today on tpl media we are going to be talking
00:00:09.680 about cannabis not only medical but recreational cannabis and the best person i could ever think
00:00:15.920 about bringing on to this show to talk about cannabis is a former activist and a man who knows
00:00:20.960 probably more about cannabis than he even wants to admit uh my guest today mike dinsmore mike how
00:00:26.560 are you brother too bad man thanks for having me okay so recreational cannabis has been legal in
00:00:31.920 canada now for about just under eight years there's been some highs there's been some lows
00:00:37.440 there's been some ups and some downs in your personal opinion do you think that this was a
00:00:41.200 good move or a bad move on behalf of canada i know that sounds really weird to ask after you know eight
00:00:47.360 years of it being legalized but do you think that there's problems here was it a good idea was it a
00:00:51.520 bad idea what do you think well it took a while for me to form my opinion right as an activist
00:00:55.600 off the gate i was like this sucks yeah right but in time with all the progress that we've made
00:01:01.120 i really see the potential in it now right there's still a lot of work to do but but i see potential
00:01:06.400 in it and i think that it would never have got to that point if it hadn't become legal now cannabis
00:01:11.120 seems to be the most obnoxious hobby in terms of the smell and how it is perceived by the average
00:01:17.760 person that doesn't partake in cannabis is have some of those things been cleared up since legalization
00:01:22.480 or no i think you don't hear as much complaining anymore right like when the majority of the people
00:01:28.400 out are users themselves yeah we're not getting as much bickering right but but there are still going
00:01:34.080 to people who don't like it there's people who don't like the smell of cars like it's just it is
00:01:38.080 what it is right we have to get used to it that's kind of that's an interesting way to look at it because
00:01:42.080 i know in toronto for about 10 years which about it it's been just out in the open people are just
00:01:48.240 everywhere smoking on the side of the street and now that's transferred to some of the smaller cities
00:01:52.080 and pretty much everywhere you go like even late night if i'm walking a dog or something like that
00:01:57.920 you'll notice that there's like a young couple coming across from you and they kind of hide their
00:02:01.360 hand and then you get past them and you realize why they're hiding their hand yeah they don't want
00:02:05.120 you to know like there's still a consideration for most people but there's a lot of partaking on the
00:02:09.440 sides of the street with this yeah there is as well as like vaping and stuff right in cigarette smoke
00:02:14.320 like we got used to cigarette smoke and now there's lots of people vaping but nobody really
00:02:19.360 you know hides that because it smells like gummy bears and rainbows and stuff like that okay a lot
00:02:24.480 of the market has switched over to concentrate so you are seeing a lot less complaining a lot less
00:02:28.960 people smoking joints definitely not people outside on the street smoking bongs anymore when there's a
00:02:33.520 lot easier format to do it vaporizing dried cannabis and vaporizing concentrate seems to be a more
00:02:40.000 popular way to do it now it's a lot less you know incriminating yourself it doesn't smell bad and you
00:02:45.120 don't need to hide it now i know that you're not you're not a lawyer and you're not a you're not part
00:02:49.840 of the judicial system or anything but how have the laws changed since like october 17 2018 what changed
00:02:56.160 in the in the the ways of laws just outside of legalization like is there less trafficking laws
00:03:02.160 now like is there did they leave are they lenient on that or are they more strict on that now that the ocs is
00:03:08.320 well they actually have something to go off of now right like so there's a lot more impaired driving
00:03:13.280 probably now that they're able to do the testing and improve it right yeah so that's changed um as
00:03:19.120 for like incarcerations for you know possession that's definitely gone down which is a super positive
00:03:24.960 thing and i'm sure like you know some people are happy to have people not driving around intoxicated
00:03:30.720 right before when you got pulled over if you were drunk you would probably get in trouble for it but if you
00:03:35.520 you know you you rarely would get caught for for smoking cannabis and driving now it's it's a known
00:03:41.040 test right they have tests they have way to test you so a lot less people are doing it which is
00:03:45.280 making the road safer and people people are happy about it now okay so with that said you see you
00:03:51.120 brought up alcohol alcohol sales seem to be down um this has been reported from statistics can this
00:03:56.880 is reported from pretty much every place that does stats in canada we know alcohol sales are down is
00:04:01.760 that because of recreational cannabis it probably has some i think it's a trend i think alcohol in
00:04:07.840 itself is just kind of fading away there's other options cannabis probably has a hand in that because
00:04:12.560 it's now super readily available over 3 000 shops you know just in ontario so they should it's probably
00:04:19.360 doing that for sure but also a lot of the alcohol companies are switching over making cannabis products
00:04:24.320 so it's not like they're losing revenue anyways and when when you were an activist i know one of the big
00:04:28.320 things that used to really make your voice known for is that if they legalize this for recreational
00:04:34.960 use that's going to open up the uh research inside of these labs and we're going to know more about
00:04:40.400 this plant that we don't fully understand has that taken place to you in your opinion 100 yeah uh it
00:04:46.240 started pre-legalization and it's moving forward tremendously like we never knew about a lot of
00:04:51.600 these cannabinoids that they're coming out with now that we all know about uh cbn cbg cbd we knew about
00:04:58.000 we thought it was an amazing thing you know with its inflammation curing and its seizure uh you
00:05:04.640 know it helps with seizures and everything but like now we have cbn that people are using to help
00:05:09.040 them sleep we have cbg to help with people's anxiety what's cbg cbg is we call it like the god cannabinoid
00:05:15.840 like it's it is premature essentially i would explain it to somebody in dull down form like it's premature
00:05:20.880 thc it's it's what uh anything so we call it the god termine because it's what starts out and then it can
00:05:27.680 go anywhere from there it could turn to cbd it could turn to thc it could turn to cbc so it's
00:05:33.840 basically where it starts right so they can turn into the canadian broadcasting um okay so is that
00:05:40.720 with rick simpson oil uh if anybody doesn't know rso that was a full extract from the entire plant
00:05:47.120 roots leaves stem uh flower everything spectrum so that that contains everything then every sort
00:05:53.680 every everything that that plant had in it right because all cannabis plants have different levels
00:05:58.400 of different things in it right so where do you think we're at in terms of uh understanding the
00:06:02.800 plant are we there yet or are we just like on the cusp of beginning to understand i think we're just
00:06:06.560 beginning to understand it so it's super like we've we've made leaps and bounds right we basically
00:06:12.160 knew nothing you know from what we know now it feels like we knew nothing 14 years ago okay right so
00:06:17.760 i'm excited for the next 14 years i think it's going to just what we're going to the knowledge
00:06:22.000 we're going to grasp and the things we're going to do with what we know it's gonna it's going to be
00:06:26.880 amazing and we're going to have some serious you know progress i got a weird question asking this is
00:06:32.640 just from my own personal my own personal usage why can't i find uh like something like let's say 10
00:06:39.600 years ago 15 years ago cushions came onto the scene and if anybody doesn't know cushions usually an indica
00:06:45.280 dominant uh their sativa and indica and it's an indica dominant hybrid or an indica pure uh strain
00:06:52.880 why does that not exist anymore why can't i find that what's the actual science as far as you know
00:06:57.600 as why these strains kind of go through a life cycle and they disappear after a while you fall in love
00:07:02.320 with something and now it doesn't exist like if i fall in love with molson canadian i can always go to
00:07:06.720 the beer store the liquor store now the gas station depending on what province you live in and get
00:07:10.400 myself a molten canadian that's a recipe right um and made with certain ingredients that never change
00:07:15.520 where cannabis is an ever evolving ever changing plant um so it's always it's always we breed it
00:07:21.520 and we cross different strains we find this one that helps with this and but i like this one that helps
00:07:26.560 with that and then we cross them together and we have something completely different and we've been
00:07:30.400 doing that for a long time now uh and and we're creating new strains better strains and but we're
00:07:37.120 also losing old strains that we loved is that because the potency is dying and people aren't buying it or is
00:07:41.680 it just it like after a while it doesn't have any life anymore like why is as far as you know why is
00:07:46.560 that i don't know the exact science behind it i didn't you know once you you know we use clippings
00:07:50.560 from from mother plants and i just know that you know the genetics do kind of we not down after a
00:07:56.880 long time i think they usually sometimes will do it for two couple years for one plant or they used to
00:08:02.480 okay and um extracts if people don't know what extracts are back in the day you had hash right and
00:08:08.960 everybody anybody that partook and hash they felt like it was a completely different thing
00:08:12.640 than cannabis although it's the same plant yeah it gave you a different buzz shaking the important
00:08:17.120 stuff off the plant what is going on with you hear about people doing shatter and dabs and live rosins
00:08:22.800 and there's a million and one names and live resins for all of these different types of extracts what is
00:08:27.520 an extract cannabis extract is that as as blatant as saying that's like a fruit extract like i can just
00:08:33.200 yeah you're concentrated you're taking essentials of something out of it right so
00:08:38.080 in whole form of a bud flower right you have the leafs and everything like that but that's not
00:08:43.040 there's no benefit to smoking plant or plant matter so we extract what we do want out of that plant out
00:08:48.800 of it whether it be just the thc or you know we go even deeper to take the terpenes and the taste and
00:08:54.960 stuff out of it and then and then we reintroduce it into the you know into the extract well they have the
00:08:59.840 cbd isolates which are powders and that's a an extract form of cbd and usually find it in a powder
00:09:05.520 they mix it in drinks and things like that so it's the purest form yeah okay oh it is the purest
00:09:10.080 form i believe so yeah see i never passed science class me neither at all in high school i passed
00:09:14.880 i just didn't go yeah we never got to i probably could have passed yeah
00:09:19.600 but i do love i do love this plant i do love this topic but there is some things i've got some kind
00:09:24.320 of reservations myself on cannabis and maybe you can correct me if i'm wrong i like i said at the
00:09:28.560 beginning of the show i do think it is the most obnoxious form of hobby or i guess if you want to
00:09:35.600 call it getting a buzz or winding down at the end of the night or on the weekend it seems to be very
00:09:40.960 very stinky it's the smell right can we stop the smell of cannabis do you think and still keep
00:09:46.800 the buzz boring because like a lot of that smell comes like it's all tastes right it's all created
00:09:52.000 from terpenes and stuff like that which we also enjoy when we like it's this taste right so cannabis
00:09:57.040 terpenes are those the same as the as food terpenes they're similar yeah similar like terpenes that
00:10:02.480 you know we get from plants and stuff like that where we get our flavor and our aromas so lemon all
00:10:06.720 or whatever it's called lemon you find that in lemon balm uh you also it's on the core of the
00:10:12.640 lemon that makes it smell lemony right so if i get an essential oil and it's got lemon in it it's the
00:10:17.440 same terpene just an organic like it's going to be the same kind of thing that's found in cannabis
00:10:22.640 or the same where they got that flavor from is the same yeah because i remember 20 years ago i had
00:10:28.880 never heard of anything called a terpene and then about 10 years ago when the gray market really
00:10:32.480 started popping up people were like making a living off of just selling the terpenes that had no
00:10:37.760 psychoactive effect or any medical benefits from it it was just i just happened to like i got into
00:10:41.920 like essential oils at the time and they're you know saying i'll sniff this it'll calm you down and
00:10:46.800 put a couple drops of this on your temple it'll help your migraines and and i kind of got thinking like
00:10:50.960 you know i've heard of that i've heard of that you know lavender and i've heard of that lemon in the
00:10:55.120 pot and i've heard them and seen them written on packages and stuff and uh and on descriptions
00:11:00.000 on leafly and stuff and i was like hmm you know and i kind of put it together these are these are
00:11:04.160 the same thing right like and i think it's amazing that like you know each plant has different ones
00:11:10.080 right like a rose plant always produces that same terpene that a rose plant produces right maybe
00:11:14.320 sometimes the leaves will change different colors but it always produces those terms we always sometimes it
00:11:20.080 will produce that terpene sometimes it won't this one will produce that terpene this one won't and i
00:11:24.720 just think it's kind of cool how it it's a collective plant like how it does that so you're very familiar
00:11:29.840 with the ocs right you have a you have a service license yeah and you work with them very closely
00:11:35.520 what do you think if there is any corrections that could be made in the system that's currently there
00:11:40.080 that could be either updated pulled back on just to make this whole process better in your opinion in the
00:11:46.560 from a store perspective if i was a recreational average user and i walked in what would make
00:11:50.480 those stores better if anything yeah um well they've helped out by letting us um you know open
00:11:56.000 up our when we don't have to shade our windows anymore which i think is great for just all around safety
00:12:00.880 right yeah um yeah but uh i think they originally wanted that for a safety reason but it kind of was
00:12:06.000 it's a very competitive market right um we're not allowed to um persuade you to buy we're not allowed to
00:12:13.280 say buy one get one free we're not allowed to do stuff like that there's no like marketing that
00:12:18.000 could go towards kids we know that that exists in all these bills that were passed i'm not allowed
00:12:21.360 to market it to to influence an adult either though really yeah this is why we're not seeing the same
00:12:26.880 thing as we see in the states like mike tyson has his own cannabis line when you buy a case of beer and
00:12:30.720 you get a stanley cup in it or you get a free jersey or you get a free flag or something like that like
00:12:34.720 we could never be like come into the store buy an ounce and i'll give you a free t-shirt or i'll give you some
00:12:39.920 free concert tickets or a chance to win this because it influences you to to buy cannabis and
00:12:45.520 we're not allowed to influence you so we're not allowed to use like celebrity aid or advertising
00:12:50.400 of any sort like that and from your understanding why is that different between cannabis and
00:12:54.800 alcohol do you even know or is that just a lobby like is that just something that i honestly don't
00:12:58.720 understand i'm like evolution eventually there was some reasoning behind it right but yeah it's like
00:13:04.000 some you know in the industry as a salesperson we we kind of scratch our heads like but why
00:13:08.960 you know if they can do it in this industry why not in this industry has it's loosened up a little
00:13:14.720 bit i just think that they could take bigger leaps with their loosening up they've loosened up a
00:13:19.200 little bit on the milligramage okay uh we had a 10 cap limit for edibles right 10 milligrams per package
00:13:24.880 yeah of extract we found a loophole where we sell 10 packages in one box so it equals 100 milligrams
00:13:30.160 but you still have 10 milligram packages so the the stores figured that i guess it's not really
00:13:36.640 a loophole is it it's just it's just the technicality of it they figured the way around the option
00:13:40.960 right and and like it's just or we have to do our job as a bud tender to pre-warn them like hey how
00:13:46.160 much milligram are you used to i just don't think that every bud tender is going to do that so they
00:13:50.560 don't give them the option like i've it's a terrible it's a terrible like you know anybody who's
00:13:54.640 ever greened out before it is the worst experience you've ever had well it's processed through your
00:13:58.560 liver a lot differently you're overdosing on cannabis yeah i it is probably one of the worst
00:14:02.720 feeling overdoses you've you you can have right it's far worse than alcohol or any other drug
00:14:07.600 i chase that overdose yeah so i feel like maybe you know it's responsible them to moderate it in that
00:14:12.560 sense right and we all know people like who don't aren't affected as as highly as others on cannabis
00:14:18.000 but there's some who aren't like us you know they they are affected heavily off very small amounts of
00:14:22.880 cannabis they have no business um driving or doing anything or you know when they're when they're
00:14:28.800 under the influence and uh they have to take those people into accountability so so going back to what
00:14:34.560 could be fixed inside of the ocs system what do you i know that there's an uh you can order online
00:14:39.120 pretty much from any store there's some of these shops are up on uber eats yeah and things like that so
00:14:43.680 there's it's easily accessible what do you think could be changed like what they could loosen up on
00:14:47.600 limits they could probably up people's limits really i think especially nowadays with people trying to be
00:14:51.840 price conscious and and you know maybe they just don't have the time to go out every day they
00:14:57.040 should be able to pick up a large amount of the amount or quantity to you know hold themselves over
00:15:02.080 right we can go to costco and buy any large amount of anything we should be able to you know stock up
00:15:06.080 you can buy it you can buy a trailer full of booze but if i leave if i leave with you know a thousand
00:15:11.120 dollars worth of canned tomato soup i don't have someone following me home trying to get that that is a
00:15:16.640 good point cannabis seems to still have a great market that might be a part of the reasoning why
00:15:21.040 right they just don't they don't think it's safe to let somebody walk out with more than 30 grams
00:15:25.920 and i'm not trying to argue with you about it you know way more than i do in terms of uh the buyer
00:15:29.840 seller relationship but i do feel like if it it could put people in potentially you know they're
00:15:34.880 trying to do what's best for their wallet or do what's best for their bank account they're going to
00:15:37.760 put it in the freezer they only use it for sleep at night there's got to be a reason they're losing
00:15:40.480 money themselves yeah they're limiting their own sales yeah so hmm so the medical community since this
00:15:47.360 recreational thing we've talked a lot about recreation what has gone on in the medical
00:15:50.880 community have they pulled back or are we still and i'm talking about medical patients of cannabis
00:15:55.280 that were using cannabis through the mmar or acmpr or whatever the license that they switched so many
00:16:01.280 times throughout the years are they still being taken care of in your opinion do you know anything
00:16:06.160 about that side of the iceberg now i am a medical license holder myself and like what they do now is
00:16:12.960 they give you like they'll give you like certain um places to go to buy it right is it cheaper for
00:16:21.600 the medical patient essentially cheaper but like you're you're limited because you have to buy this
00:16:26.320 product from this company and this product from this company where like the convenience of just
00:16:30.240 walking into a store that has all the brands and all all the stuff if they do available is probably
00:16:36.160 easier most people find right than waiting are doctors still prescribing prescriptions the way that
00:16:41.520 they were before or do they do that less now because it's easily like if you want it you can
00:16:45.600 just go in and get it you can just go in and get it yeah it's super easy yeah yeah you can sign up
00:16:49.600 any like i think i signed up from somebody online like i like i like the facebook posts and they
00:16:54.240 contact me like hey you want your license yeah yeah well that's the way it was for years like you
00:16:59.600 couldn't go anywhere in downtown my back every five blocks there was a doctor saying here's your script
00:17:04.880 right it's 400 bucks yeah yeah yeah so it like they're free now so oh it's free now um i think
00:17:11.600 yeah mine was free oh wow yeah okay so that's changed i think there's still some people who are
00:17:15.840 charging i don't know i'm not really i've never really got into that like so i never got a license
00:17:20.640 until i hurt my back right so during all of legalization when people were requiring their
00:17:24.560 licenses well you were going the activist yeah you put yourself out yeah i i didn't believe i needed a
00:17:29.120 license i i'd used it you know for my own reasons and i didn't uh i didn't think i needed a license so
00:17:37.280 so i googled you before we came here and one of the big things that comes up is you standing on the
00:17:42.080 front line of the global marijuana march holding one of your activist signs right front line out of
00:17:49.120 all 20 000 people you're right up at the front and there's a couple different people that were beside
00:17:54.400 you one of them was mark emery yeah who used to be known as the prince of pot here in canada
00:17:59.680 kind of got you know a really big uh cult following and then it all fell apart real
00:18:05.680 quick and he disappeared during legalization real quick without saying anything salacious
00:18:12.800 was mark emery a good thing for the movement or did that push that back a couple years with him
00:18:18.560 i think he was at one point yeah and uh i think just like anybody else if you can you can be a good
00:18:25.840 role model and fall off and i think he fell off i think he got a little bit to his head
00:18:31.520 maybe a little bit a lot of power comes great responsibility right i wasn't standing beside him
00:18:36.560 i wouldn't stand beside that man that was matt mernoff i was standing beside oh matt yeah
00:18:41.280 who ran for toronto mayor also a legend in the industry yep it made serious leaps and bounds in the
00:18:46.880 any anonymous besides you guys another legend people like myself to be an activist yeah so yeah
00:18:52.720 so is there an activist movement anymore inside of cannabis as far as you know it's it's i'm not
00:18:59.520 a part of it if there is okay um a lot of the older dogs have kind of trickled away and we're
00:19:04.480 just kind of getting on with our lives you know we did we got what we wanted right and now it's kind
00:19:09.840 of in some of us are in the industry working in the industry some of us aren't um and you know some
00:19:16.160 of us are off to new adventures and ventures in our lives but well and i'll tell you there's still
00:19:20.480 lots of work to be done and i hope that there's people out there still fighting the good fight
00:19:24.960 because like we do we there's still work to be done in just the cannabis industry alone well i watched
00:19:30.320 your group personally and whether it was coming from you directly or whoever the group themselves
00:19:36.640 do a lot of work a lot of work on people that were with no hope that had known nothing about rso
00:19:44.640 their daughters were having seizures or their sons were having seizures or their husbands or whoever
00:19:49.920 and i watched you guys go above and beyond for those people get them relief get them treatment
00:19:54.400 educate them properly and if it wasn't for you guys this is the reason why i've even brought you on if
00:19:59.280 it wasn't for people like you with this wouldn't if it was legalized it had been legalized for
00:20:05.760 all the wrong reasons yeah yeah like we wanted it for our patients like we definitely lost
00:20:11.040 money making when i watched you throw thousands of dollars make the joke you know because i still
00:20:16.800 i'm still selling cannabis legally but and i and i make the joke you know i don't i don't make any
00:20:21.280 money anymore but but but like i don't i don't regret it yeah you never did i think like again in the
00:20:27.040 next you know few years we're going to make so many leaps and bounds in the science and you know of
00:20:32.240 cannabis and learning about it and how we can help people with it um that i think it's all we're
00:20:36.720 going to be worth it right so so i'll read you some stuff here i printed out a whole bunch of notes but
00:20:40.800 i think i've only need a couple talking points before we get you out of here the federal and
00:20:44.240 provincial governments earned 2.2 billion from recreational cannabis in march uh that's reported
00:20:51.440 in march 31st of 2024 so 2024 basically they had made 2.2 billion from recreational cannabis
00:20:57.680 that's a pretty big number you i would feel like that would be higher though
00:21:02.240 is that because the gray market's still existing yeah like i think i think if you go off the
00:21:09.200 reports like they're saying like only like you know so many people purchase from from you know
00:21:14.400 the black market nowadays what we call the black market right um but uh the things you had to do
00:21:19.680 20 years ago to get a grandma weed and a lot of people are still purchasing from the black market
00:21:24.720 yeah yeah they are you see you could drive down the street next over from here and see three ocs
00:21:33.520 stores and see one or two gray market stores i don't know how they're operating but they are
00:21:37.360 so there still is a market there right yeah so maybe that's why the number is sovereign shops for
00:21:41.280 sure there's 3 000 stores legal stores nationally yeah is that a big enough number or is that too much
00:21:47.600 it's too much it's too much it's too much as somebody who who you know is helping run help
00:21:54.560 helping run a store and working in a shop you know i want our shop to do good and it's just the
00:21:59.520 competitors you know you go 20 you said you go down the street there's three shops on this street
00:22:04.480 right like they're competing right so and it makes for it makes for a very like we have to be good at our
00:22:10.960 jobs we you know so now i don't know what this doesn't give me an age but in 2024 it's saying six
00:22:18.080 percent of all people in canada are reported consuming cannabis daily or almost daily that's
00:22:24.400 awesome of a country six percent of a whole country that's a lot of six percent and it's wrong i guarantee
00:22:30.320 you it's more really you think that would be a higher number i think so because like you got to go
00:22:35.200 you that those stats are just going off honesty right like i'm sure there's a i'm sure like you know
00:22:39.840 two out of every five people they ask are actually smoke or actually part well we got a couple people
00:22:44.160 in the room so let's say out of the five people five people in the room how many actually smoke
00:22:49.120 cannabis or use cannabis consumption on a daily or by daily basis put up your hands don't out yourselves
00:22:55.840 the entire room yeah five out of five all right well ladies and gentlemen hopefully you got a little
00:23:02.160 bit of an education here i don't know if you did i just really wanted to talk to my friend who knows
00:23:06.400 so much more about cannabis and the legal market than i could ever um subscribe like the channel
00:23:13.280 comment below if you disagree agree i just want to know we're trying to educate each other
00:23:17.680 download the tpl app right now on android or apple you can type in true patriot love you will find our
00:23:26.320 app go to our website tplmedia.ca and stay fresh ladies and gentlemen