How Does The Cannabis Industry Work? - Chris Walsh - #333

**Chris Williamson** (0:00)
What's happening, people? welcome back to the show. My guest today is Chris Walsh. He's the CEO and president of Marijuana Business Daily and an industry trend analyst. We are talking about how the cannabis industry works. People are claiming that cannabis will be the next gold rush industry. After it grew by nearly 50% in 2020, that seems likely. Chris knows everything about the world of weed. So today, we get the inside scoop on this rapidly growing industry. Expect to learn how weed is somehow illegal, federally but legal at the state level, why THC suppositories are a thing, whether there will be a psychedelics industry, what to expect from the next few years of legalization and much more. I also tried to find out how it is that Dan Bilzerian's company is like the only weed company in all of the world that went backwards in 2020 But Chris is diplomatic and a professional. So he remained impartial on that question. But it's still an interesting thing to consider. It takes a real talent to be able to go backward when an entire industry grows by 50% during the space of a year. But now, ladies and gentlemen, please give it up for the wise and wonderful Chris Walsh.
Chris Walsh, welcome to the show.

**Chris Walsh** (1:39)
Thank you for having me on. Excited to talk cannabis.

**Chris Williamson** (1:42)
What is someone with an MBA doing, working in the cannabis industry?

**Chris Walsh** (1:47)
Well, I was finishing it when I got involved back in 2011, and definitely got a lot of questions about what the hell I was doing. I was finishing my MBA, and had a background in journalism. So I was a business reporter and editor at newspapers in the US and in South Korea.
So what is a person with an MBA doing? You're seeing more and more of people like me come in. But it's a massive business opportunity, and it's in the US, it's in Canada, it's in Europe, it's in South America, it's all over the world now. So I'm in it because first and foremost, it was a fascinating industry that I wanted to be part of. I don't come from the cannabis culture, but from a business perspective, I thought there was a lot to like here into helping develop a new industry and also cannabis helps people in a lot of ways. So it's not like we're making cups or whatever, we're doing something, we're making a product, we're helping an industry that relies on a product that's actually helping people and that's important to me personally too. So a lot of unique aspects about cannabis that lured me into it.

**Chris Williamson** (2:56)
What makes the cannabis industry so interesting?

**Chris Walsh** (3:00)
Well, I would say that the rapid speed at which cannabis has gained support all over the place, this was something even when we started, that was really taboo still. So again, we started in 2011 and even then it was like, what is my aunt who's a nun on the East Coast going to say? What is my dad, a serious political journalist going to say?
And so, what we've seen is that the rapid acceptance of this industry has been phenomenal, way faster than I thought. So there's just excitement around it. People are embracing it, they're accepting it. It's an industry that has come out of the darkness very quickly, it's existed for a long time, right? But not in a legal fashion and people are interested in it. It's fun, it's cool. And there's not a lot of industries that offer this level of excitement and opportunity. The people in it are different, there's great people, there's not, in some cases, there's not a lot of business sophistication, which is changing. But what you have this industry crop up, especially here in the US, where the average everyday person could get involved. And that is changing. Initially, the regulations were really low, the cost to enter was low. And so you had kind of this American dream type industry where you didn't have to have 15 years of experience or have started three other companies or have a million dollars in funding to get involved. So these are some of the aspects about it. And just the massive, when you bring this up at a party that you're into it, that you're at, no one, even over the 10 years I've been in it, most people are not like, oh, I can't believe you're doing that. Or they don't like kind of turn up their nose and walk away. If anything, they're interested, even if they don't support it, they're just interested. So for all these reasons, I think it's a really fun, exciting industry. It's challenging, though, it's really hard. It's harder than anything I've ever done.