True Patriot Love


Canada’s Cannabis Revolution: Legalization Success or Failure?


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Harmful content

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Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Recreational cannabis has been legalized in Canada since Oct. 17, 2018, and since then, there has been a lot of controversy surrounding it. Is it a good thing or a bad thing? How have the laws changed since then? What are the downsides and positives that have come from the legalization of cannabis?

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
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 0.98
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 0.93
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 0.88
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 0.99
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
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00:23:26.320 app go to our website tplmedia.ca and stay fresh ladies and gentlemen