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In this educational episode of the Legacies Podcast, hosts Tom Ritchie and Wesley Bowles discuss structural retail challenges and marketing barriers in Canada. They announce their new title sponsorship with BreadStack eCommerce software, analyzing how structured search engine optimization helps legal retailers compete against illicit online menus. They evaluate public policy, analyzing Mark Zuckerberg’s letter regarding social media moderation and shadowbans affecting cannabis businesses on Instagram. They also review product packaging regulations, detailing how current Health Canada limits impact brand building and customer education.
Later, they welcome Tony Chapman, host of Chatter That Matters and three-time marketing Hall of Fame inductee. Tony reviews the historical implementation of the Cannabis Act, detailing how rigid packaging requirements, high excise tax rates, and restrictive physical layouts (hidden storefronts) squandered Canada’s first-mover advantage. He compares the commodity pricing dynamics of legal cannabis to traditional agriculture, proposing structured provincial branding models (modeled after regional wine appellations like Napa or Burgundy) to differentiate craft cultivators and secure global market value.
Tom Ritchie Says: Hey, what’s going on, everyone? Check out what’s coming up this week on Legacies.
Tony Chapman Says: People thought this was going to be the greatest gift to our economy. I got up on stage and titled my keynote: Cannabis: It’s a Bong Show. You can imagine the audience pushback!
Tom Ritchie Says: If you get caught putting counterfeit CRA excise stamps on illicit packaging, that is a serious federal offense. They do not fuck around!
Tom Ritchie Says: Hey, what’s going on, everyone? Welcome to Legacies. I’m your host, Tom Ritchie, joined by my partner in crime, Wesley ‘The Wizard’ Bowles. How are you doing, Wes?
Wesley Bowles Says: It feels great to be back after our vacation week!
Tom Ritchie Says: We have massive news over our break: Legacies Podcast is officially powered by Breadstack as our title sponsor! This is a major milestone for us. We’ve vetted various sponsorship opportunities, and we align 100% with the Breadstack team.
Tom Ritchie Says: Their entire mission is solving digital presence for cannabis retailers—making it effortless for consumers to find stores online, discover products, and check out seamlessly. Wes, you worked hands-on with them during the Stok’d Cannabis project. Can you speak to what they’ve built?
Wesley Bowles Says: A huge thank you to Lisa Bigioni from Stok’d Cannabis for making that introduction. Working directly with Breadstack on Stok’d’s new e-commerce and local SEO deployment was incredible. The platform is phenomenal, and we couldn’t be more excited to partner with them.
Tom Ritchie Says: If you’re a cannabis retailer looking to upgrade your digital menu, boost search engine rankings, and own your customer relationship, reach out to Breadstack. Request a demo, tell them Legacies sent you, and you’ll see why we stand behind them.
Tom Ritchie Says: Over our vacation, we received pushback on a clip posted to X and Instagram regarding illicit storefronts. My stance was taken completely out of context as usual.
Tom Ritchie Says: Someone commented on X asking why illicit mail-order and black-market storefronts still outrank legal retailers on Google. That exact problem is what Breadstack solves! Illicit sites don’t use standardized menu iframes—they build custom, crawlable websites with aggressive SEO. When legal retailers use legacy iFrame menu embeds, Google can’t index their product catalog.
Wesley Bowles Says: Illicit sites don’t face advertising or menu restrictions, so they rank high quickly. But as legal retailers adopt modern SEO infrastructure through platforms like Breadstack, that dynamic shifts.
Tom Ritchie Says: In our clip with Lisa from Stok’d, she explained the reality of operating four licensed retail stores while an unlicensed, illegal dispensary opened two doors down. Unlicensed shops fly neon flags, advertise ‘$3 pre-rolls,’ ignore age-gating, skip testing, pay zero excise tax, and stay open until 2:00 AM.
Tom Ritchie Says: Some commenters called me a whiner and sent personal threats. Clearly, those individuals have never listened to our podcast or understood our backgrounds. Legacies celebrates legacy culture, but we fiercely support the entrepreneurs who mortgaged their family homes and life savings to build compliant businesses in the regulated space.
Wesley Bowles Says: There are brilliant cultivators and operators in the illicit space producing incredible flower. You have to wonder what they could achieve if regulatory pathways made it viable for them to transition over.
Tom Ritchie Says: People ask me why I stepped away from growing. I operated through the MMAR, MMPR, and ACMPR. When the Cannabis Act was introduced in 2018 with severe criminal penalties for unauthorized commercial distribution, I made a conscious choice. Back in the day, an infraction might mean probation or a slap on the wrist. Under the new regime, with a growing family, I refused to look over my shoulder.
Tom Ritchie Says: I chose to bring my cultivation and marketing experience into the legal sector. When I dropped pounds back then, it was true black-market wholesale—clean, organic, no spider mites, no botrytis. We didn’t package it in shiny retail bags with cartoon characters to sell next door to struggling licensed store owners. If you’re risking it in the illicit market today, that’s your choice, but don’t attack the legal operators fighting every day to keep their doors open.
Tom Ritchie Says: One commenter wrote: ‘Ask this guy if he even knows an OG strain from 2000!’ Man, I was growing in 1990! Crawl back under your rock.
Tom Ritchie Says: During the break, we hung out at the lake, ate pizza, and took the kids out on the water. Wes, you took a beating on the wave runner, and I made the mistake of strapping into a wakeboard for the first time in twenty years since my back surgery. My body is paying for it today!
Wesley Bowles Says: Disconnecting is brutal for entrepreneurs. You bring your laptop intending to ‘knock out work,’ but forcing yourself to completely unplug for a few days is necessary so you don’t burn out.
Tom Ritchie Says: I think of craft growers and legacy operators across Canada—guys like Chi from 1337 Elite—who grind seven days a week, pay themselves last, and go years without a proper paycheck just to keep the lights on.
Tom Ritchie Says: Did you catch Mark Zuckerberg’s letter to Congress admitting the Biden-Harris administration pressured Meta to censor content during COVID-19?
Wesley Bowles Says: That letter went through dozens of corporate lawyers. Meta is feeling direct heat from X’s stance on free expression. They see the political winds shifting and want to get ahead of scrutiny.
Wesley Bowles Says: Interestingly, over the last few months, we’ve noticed significantly less shadowbanning, account strikes, and content takedowns on Instagram for cannabis-adjacent accounts. Meta may be quietly easing restrictions as pressure mounts.
Tom Ritchie Says: If Meta’s self-serving maneuvering results in fewer cannabis brands getting arbitrarily de-platformed, that’s a positive step for the entire industry.
Tom Ritchie Says: I saw a LinkedIn post that generated over 240 comments with the statement: ‘If you work in sales and marketing in cannabis and you do not consume, that is WRONG.’ What’s your take?
Wesley Bowles Says: In marketing, you can understand a target audience, craft value propositions, and execute strong design without being a daily consumer. In sales, however, if you’re representing craft flower, you need firsthand knowledge of the burn, ash, terpene profile, and smoothness to speak authentically to retailers.
Wesley Bowles Says: People often confuse consumption with overconsumption. Sampling a half-gram joint to evaluate a lot isn’t smoking all day. Category also matters—if you sell topicals or CBD wellness balms from Stewart Farms, you should definitely test their effectiveness, whereas high-potency diamond-infused pre-rolls require a different approach.
Tom Ritchie Says: In advertising, automotive creative directors don’t all drive Porsches. In alcohol analytics, many executives don’t drink. But cannabis is deeply sensory. If you’re selling flower, having personal familiarity with the cultivar builds undeniable credibility with budtenders.
Tom Ritchie Says: We received our ambassador package from Dom Jackson through Dope Box. I’ve been smoking their Banjo pre-rolls—phenomenal flavor, clean burn, and potent effects.
Wesley Bowles Says: I brought their Merry-Go-Round cultivar testing at 29.3% THC. The terpene nose on this jar is extraordinary—proper cure, dense trichome coverage, and great packaging.
Tom Ritchie Says: I’ve seen illicit market operators packaging flower with fake Health Canada THC warning symbols and counterfeit Canada Revenue Agency excise stamps to trick casual buyers into thinking it’s legal product.
Tom Ritchie Says: Faking a Health Canada stop sign is bad enough, but forging CRA excise tax stamps is a direct federal tax offense. The CRA and RCMP do not play games with counterfeit tax stamps. Do not do that.
Tom Ritchie Says: Today’s guest is a true giant in Canadian advertising, public relations, and consumer strategy: Tony Chapman, host of Chatter That Matters!
Tom Ritchie Says: Tony founded two top-tier international advertising agencies, Communiqué and Capital C. He has been inducted into the Marketing Hall of Legends and the Canadian Public Relations and Advertising Hall of Fame. He appears regularly on BNN Bloomberg and The Dales Report.
Tom Ritchie Says: In 2017, right before legalization, Tony delivered a famous keynote warning that Canada was squandering its early mover advantage by over-regulating packaging and retail. Seven years into the Cannabis Act, we want to evaluate where the industry went wrong and how we can fix it.
Tom Ritchie Says: Welcome to Legacies, Tony! It is an absolute honor to have you with us.
Tony Chapman Says: Thank you, Tom and Wes! The honor is entirely mine. I’m a huge fan of what you’re doing, your conversational interviewing style, and the depth of guests you bring on.
Tom Ritchie Says: Take us back to 2017 at the Grow Up Conference in Niagara Falls, where you delivered your keynote right before Kevin O’Leary took the stage.
Tony Chapman Says: Capital was flooding into Canada. Investors thought cannabis would be the greatest economic boom in Canadian history. I walked on stage and titled my keynote: Cannabis: It’s a Bong Show.
Tony Chapman Says: The audience stared daggers at me! I told them Canada had the greatest commercial opportunity in its history: first-mover advantage in a multi-billion-dollar global category with existing consumer demand across every adult demographic, agricultural expertise, world-class genetics, and medical legitimacy.
Tony Chapman Says: Instead of unleashing entrepreneurs, government treated cannabis like a vice and tied everyone’s hands behind their backs. They banned packaging design, which is the primary vehicle for consumer education—explaining the difference between an indica and a sativa, minor cannabinoids, or terpene profiles.
Tony Chapman Says: They mandated frosted glass storefronts that looked like Ontario liquor stores from the 1950s. They layered on crushing excise and provincial taxes that allowed the illicit market to undercut legal retail. They turned an agricultural craft into a faceless commodity and set up tollbooths just to collect taxes.
Tony Chapman Says: Why couldn’t we have cannabis tourism hotels with medical staff, hospitality lounges, and culinary pairings? We could have had the world traveling to Canada the way people travel to Amsterdam or Napa Valley, building enduring global brands. Instead, our government squandered billions in capital.
Tom Ritchie Says: Other countries exploring legalization now look at Canada as a case study of what not to do.
Tony Chapman Says: Look at what Napa Valley did with wine or Burgundy did in France. We had globally recognized appellations like ‘BC Bud.’ We should have created regional seals of approval, celebrating terroir, craft growers, and premium pricing like a Four Seasons hotel instead of racing to the bottom like a highway motel.
Tony Chapman Says: The difference between raw corn and Kellogg’s Corn Flakes is a hundred billion dollars in brand equity. Right now, Canada is in the raw corn business, shipping bulk commodities. Anyone can grow cannabis in low-cost jurisdictions with 365 days of sunshine. Germany, Australia, and Israel will protect their domestic growers over Canadian imports. Brand equity is our only defense.
Tom Ritchie Says: In Ontario alone, retail went from a government monopoly to a private lottery, and finally to an open licensing model that led to cluster saturation with seven dispensaries in small towns carrying 300+ identical SKUs.
Tony Chapman Says: Canada has better free-trade terms with 65 foreign countries than we do between our own provinces! We are an over-governed nation of 40 million people where federal, provincial, and municipal silos protect their own turf rather than fostering domestic commerce.
Tony Chapman Says: In craft beer or micro-distilleries, you can sample gin at the counter, read stunning packaging, and understand the maker’s story. In cannabis, adult consumers buy plain white pouches that look like medical prescription bags. When you treat consumers with mistrust, you destroy the emotional connection required to build brand value.
Tom Ritchie Says: If consumers realized that in some provinces, up to 76% of every dollar spent on cannabis goes toward excise taxes, wholesale markups, and HST, would that trigger policy reform?
Tony Chapman Says: Financial literacy is crucial, but governments often attempt to boil the ocean instead of testing targeted solutions. Why not designate regulatory ‘petri dishes’—like the Okanagan in BC or Niagara-on-the-Lake in Ontario—where we pilot farm-gate sampling, consumption lounges, and integrated music and culinary tourism?
Tony Chapman Says: Study the economic impact, tourism revenue, and public health metrics over six months. If it works, scale it nationally. You unleash creativity by giving entrepreneurs sandbox environments to prove new business models.
Tom Ritchie Says: When legal retailers face restrictive window coverings, marketing bans, and mandatory closing hours, why is municipal enforcement hesitating to shut down unlicensed storefronts operating openly on commercial streets?
Tony Chapman Says: This speaks to a broader cultural shift—a breakdown in civility where society turns a blind eye to rule-breaking while placing burdensome regulations on compliant citizens. It mirrors the ‘Broken Windows’ theory.
Tony Chapman Says: If a licensed retailer invests her life savings to follow every provincial guideline, allowing an unlicensed competitor to draft off her foot traffic without paying taxes or adhering to age verification undermines the entire rule of law.
Tom Ritchie Says: Are price aggregators eroding brand loyalty across consumer goods?
Tony Chapman Says: Absolutely. In an affordability crisis, price becomes the default tie-breaker. The days of generic corporate slogans are over. Consumers gravitate either toward high-utility brands like Red Bull that solve immediate needs or toward stripped-down value aggregators like Booking.com, Uber Eats, and Amazon.
Tony Chapman Says: If cannabis is marketed purely as a generic commodity with plain packaging, consumers will naturally buy the cheapest milligram of THC available. The only antidote to commoditization is authentic storytelling, unique genetics, and differentiated retail experiences.
Tony Chapman Says: Cannabis is inherently social. If I had full authority, I would prioritize experiential retail over faceless home delivery. Picture a cannabis concept store combined with vinyl records, premium espresso, local music memorabilia, and an acoustic stage.
Tony Chapman Says: Furthermore, cannabinoid wellness topicals, CBD skincare, and minor-cannabinoid bath balms should be sold at Sephora and wellness boutiques. Adult-use cannabis beverages and low-dose confections should be integrated into licensed restaurants, music venues, and convenience stores alongside craft beer and wine.
Tom Ritchie Says: What are your thoughts on government entities acting simultaneously as the sole wholesale distributor and an online direct-to-consumer retailer, like the OCS in Ontario?
Tony Chapman Says: Whenever you centralize excessive market power within a single state bureaucracy, the consumer loses. Government should establish safety standards, collect fair taxes, and license operators—not run commercial warehouses and retail logistics in direct competition with private enterprise.
Wesley Bowles Says: Last week, David Brown from StratCann asked our chain question: ‘Where do you see the Canadian cannabis industry in five years—by 2030?’
Tony Chapman Says: If Canada remains on its current trajectory, distribution will be dominated by tech monopolies like Amazon, dictating margins and shelf placement through algorithms.
Tony Chapman Says: However, if we empower craft producers to build genuine regional brand equity—anchored in culture, tourism, food, music, and hospitality—Canadian craft cannabis will become a globally coveted product that partners with major platforms on its own terms.
Tom Ritchie Says: What is your chain question for next week’s incoming guest?
Tony Chapman Says: ‘Share an example of a product or service that genuinely matters to you and why—and is it because of its marketing, or because it actually helps you get to where you want to go in life?’
Tom Ritchie Says: What an insightful, foundational question! Tony, thank you so much for joining us and sharing your wisdom. Everyone, make sure to tune into Chatter That Matters!
Tom Ritchie Says: What an incredible masterclass in marketing, economics, and Canadian culture with Tony Chapman!
Wesley Bowles Says: Tony’s insight on the loss of civility and the urgent need for regulatory ‘petri dishes’ in BC and Ontario hits the nail right on the head.
Tom Ritchie Says: That wraps up Episode 26—officially marking the half-year milestone of Legacies Podcast! A massive thank you to our title sponsor, Breadstack. Check out their retail e-commerce platform at the link below, and we’ll see you next week on Legacies!
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Host & Marketing Strategist
Tony Chapman is a Canadian marketing executive, agency founder, radio host, and three-time marketing Hall of Fame inductee.
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Marketing Media & Podcast Platform
Chatter That Matters is a Canadian marketing insights and B2B interview media platform hosted by Tony Chapman. The platform features...
Learn More About Partner ↗He refers to the government's highly restrictive packaging, marketing, and retail regulations that hindered entrepreneurs from building global brands, despite Canada's first-mover advantage.
Tony proposes using geographic indicators (like BC Bud) similarly to Napa Valley or Champagne to create premium brand value based on cultivation origin rather than commodity pricing.
BreadStack provides eCommerce and menu solutions for dispensaries, helping them solve search engine optimization (SEO) challenges that often keep legal retailers lower on search results than illicit operators.
