LISTEN: Organigram’s Ray Gracewood On Turning a New Leaf
HALIFAX – The legalization of cannabis in Canada is only a month or two away, but most people still have many questions about how it’s going to roll out. Many are the kinds of questions that are hard to answer in short daily news stories.
Shawn King, a Partner and Chief Creative Officer with the Halifax creative agency Arrivals + Departures, has a bi-weekly podcast called Turning a New Leaf that takes a deep dive into the issues, speaking with everyone from doctors to filmmakers, lawyers to growers.
He has conversations with people close to home. In episode 14, he talked to Timothy Pellerin, the Senior VP and Chief Creative Officer of the Nova Scotia Liquor Corporation about the roll-out of the retail market there.
In episode 15, he spoke with legendary Canadian fitness icon, Hal Johnson of BodyBreak. They talked about the legalization of recreational cannabis in Canada as it pertains to physical fitness and health.
In one of the earlier episodes, he spoke with Ray Gracewood, the Chief Commerical Officer at Organigram in Moncton.
It was early days for the podcast – just the second episode – and they had a broad-ranging discussion about the cultural shifts taking place with legalization.
When King pointed out that Gracewood used the word “cannabis” rather than “pot” or “weed,” Gracewood told him that people in the industry need to break down stereotypes to normalize the use of marijuana across the country.
“I’m choosing my words strategically,” said Gracewood. “The reality is, with this industry comes years and years of attached stigma. Part of our job, from an industry perspective, is to overcome that stigma and elevate cannabis in the eyes of the public, experienced users or the ‘cannabis naive’ who are interested in what adult use is going to look like in 2018 when I can walk into a store and buy cannabis or cannabis products.”
Listen to the rest of their conversation here:
https://soundcloud.com/shawn-king-645901861/turning-a-new-leaf-002-behind-the-curtain?in=shawn-king-645901861/sets/turning-a-new-leaf-season-one