WATCH: The State of Craft Ep. 42 - Canadian Cannabis Alliance

After and almost 1.5 year hiatus, The State of Craft launched season 4 last Friday. This season, the goal The State of Craft is to find solutions to the barriers to success that mire the legal cannabis industry. These systemic issues have all but ensured that countless small-scale cannabis producers will close their doors (many dozens already have) and that thousands of Canadian jobs will be lost. Our white paper, The Dire State of Craft Cannabis in Canada, discusses these issues in detail. Our episodes this season are organized based on the sections of the white paper...

...except for our first episode from last week! Since the newly organized Canadian Cannabis Alliance has policy reform mission closely aligned with ours, we chose to highlight their coalition with our first episode for the season. Perhaps we'll invite them back for the last episode of the season to bring it back full circle?

Watch our first episode above to get an answer to any of the following questions:

• Who are the Canadian Cannabis Alliance (CCA)?
• Why do they exist?
• How is the CCA different from the other policy advocacy groups that exist?
• What are they doing to achieve their goals?
• What are the most pressing issues plaguing the cannabis industry today?
  
  

The lively discussion—which featured Alannah Davis, Rachel Colic, and Jonathan Wilson—was wonderful. We discussed:

• The importance of having policy reform discourse driven by licensed producers.
• The importance of engaging the public and ensuring that cannabis consumers joined the fight for better policies.
• The tools that the CCA is developing to help licensed producers and their employees influence the political landscape.
• The ways that the CCA differs from the most well known cannabis industry group—the Cannabis Council of Canada—of which one of our guests used to be a member.
• The significant shortcomings of "The Cannabis Forum" that has been put together by Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED).
• The Dire State of Craft Cannabis in Canada white paper.
• and much much more!!
  

We hope you check out the recording of this episode! If you want to participate in the live broadcast of The State of Craft, you can register for episode 43 exploring cannabis stigma in the health care system.