As soon as illegal brands take over the legal cannabis market
Before legalization, cannabis enthusiasts perfected their products in hopes of entering the legal market. The legacy market, a term primarily used to describe these prohibition professionals, offers years of expertise that can ultimately lead to better products.
Licensed manufacturers recognize this value and offer many of these players partnership agreements to bring their products to market. As a result, the legacy-to-legal pipeline is thriving – and that’s a very good thing for the industry and the consumer.
“Legal, illegal, we don’t care. We grew up in a time when all that stuff was illegal. “
Matt Zysman, co-founder of Shatterizer
The win is sweet for the gummy bear brand
Tabitha Fritz and her husband Ari Cohen started selling rubbery edibles at Toronto’s popular Green Market in Kensington in 2016. It was a popular starting point and Fritz’s Cannabis Company, as it is called today, grew into something the couple was committed to.
However, the legal market remained the couple’s goal. In order to make the transition from the illegal market to the regulated area, they had to prepare for the licensing process.
“That wasn’t sustainable,” says Fritz. “We have kids, we have families, we have to make sure we don’t freak out every time the doorbell rings.”
Gummies, freshly sealed and coming to a store near you! Ask your friendly cannabis dealer nearby if you have everything lined up and ready to go! pic.twitter.com/AaXNlirTFY
– Fritz’s Cannabis Company (@FritzsCanada) August 20, 2021
So they shut down their website, stopped selling rubbers, and started making the transition into the legal market. Fritz’s has teamed up with Medz Cannabis, a producer who aims to develop “innovative, quality-oriented and legacy transfer brands”.
“It took almost a year to actually make the transition; it was really very difficult, ”says Fritz. “It took a lot longer than we expected and it cost more money than we expected, but here we are and I’m selling gummy bears.”
The rise of a different breed of cannabis entrepreneur
Medz Cannabis has become a convenient route into the legal market as more brands keep entering the market. In everyday life, this means that Fritz and Cohen work in one plant together with other small producers, many of whom also come from the Altmarkt.
“There are some of us who are trying to start a cooperative of small producers, old market people,” she says. The aim of the cooperative is to bring forth a new generation of players in the cannabis industry in the hope that they can lead and shape the future of the industry.
A little more Kensington Market, a little less Bay Street.
“Suddenly we have this network of knowledge and ideas,” she says. “I think that it helps us to get better when we work together and have people with us who feel the same way.”
The old face of the industry “was a group of people almost entirely made up of whites in suits,” she says. “I think what we’ve seen now is that it doesn’t work, it doesn’t translate into cannabis, and that’s a good thing.”
“We have the chance to rebuild everything in the way that makes the most sense for the world. There is creative destruction in there. “
Not everyone was able to become “legit”
Others didn’t find the transition so easy.
For a couple of years, around the start of the legal market, the name of edible maker and Treats and Treats founder Yannick Craigwell made the news a lot.
The then brand new legal cannabis industry should be a godsend for people like him – small cannabis entrepreneurs who had the talent, experience, and products that the legal industry wanted.
When news outlets wanted to know who these people were and what they wanted, many of them called Craigwell.
Craigwell would tell you that he is a baker who makes edibles, not a caterer who bakes; This distinction is crucial as it affects both the process and the end product.
“You can tell how difficult it is to get to this site,” he says. “As soon as you think you have gone through a door, you will notice, no, you have only put your foot in the door frame. The door is not really open yet. “
Remaining truly independent remains difficult and expensive – for the likes of Craigwell, getting a fair deal with a licensed producer is still the best option. As manufacturers recognize the value of products from the old market, these offers are getting better and better.
So far this has been more of a marathon than a sprint for Craigwell. The hope for him and many other companies like his is that the wait will pay off and allow him to break into a tiny corner of the legal cannabis industry where his “baker’s process” can thrive.
“Legal, illegal, we don’t care”
And then there are Val McCulloch and Matt Zysman, the creators of the Shatterizer Dab Pen.
One effect of the blurring lines between Legacy and Legal is that characters like McCulloch and Zysman come into play – enthusiastic about pot and evangelical power users of their own product.
The couple took a homemade ‘Frankenstein’ vape and turned it into a tidy device and a sustainable family business. They seem cut from a different cloth than many of the legal industries.
Although they were never entirely “illegal”, they always bordered on the legacy market. Part of an early cohort of cannabis vaporizers aimed at medical patients and adult use enthusiasts alike.
“We weren’t out and about to grow or sell cannabis products,” says Zysman. “But we supported a lot of old friends with our hardware.”
Now they are launching their own brand of Shatter – the planned next step for them and their first true legacy-to-legal product.
“We just wanted to make sure we could participate when it was perfectly legal to make extracts,” says Zysman.
“We always dreamed of having a brand for extracts,” says McCulloch. Part of it is that they both love extracts and want other people to love them too. “We have a real opportunity here to continue our education. To have fun.”
For them, the strict boundaries between legacy and legal are not that important. Their loyalty is not to the cannabis industry, but to the cannabis community, whichever side of the law they fall on.
Instead of strictly contradicting inheritance and law, she believes that the two can coexist sustainably.
“Legal, illegal, it doesn’t matter to us,” says Zysman. “We grew up in a time when all this stuff was illegal. It wasn’t an issue for us then, and it’s not an issue for us today. “
“Ever since we took our excerpts on the legal side, we’ve still been supported and hugged by our friends in the legacy community. We all do what we are passionate about. There is space for everyone to play. “
Kieran Delamont
Kieran is a writer and photographer from Nova Scotia in Mi’kma’ki, the ancestral and unassigned territory of the Mi’kmaq people. His work has appeared in Broadview, The Walrus, Maisonneuve and elsewhere, and he has been writing about the cannabis industry since 2016.
View article by Kieran Delamont
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