Copyright © Ben Kaplan, 2025
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purpose of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.
Publisher: Meghan Macdonald | Acquiring editor: Kwame Scott Fraser/Julia Kim | Editor: Russell Smith
Cover designer: Karen Alexiou
Cover image: matchbox: Man_Half-tube/istock.com; cannabis leaf: starline/Freepik; joint: MicrovOne/istock.com; back smoke: pch.vector/Freepik
Interior: matches: designed by Freepik
All photos courtesy of the author except p. 56, Chris Cowperthwaite/Open Democracy; p. 143, Peter J. Thompson; and p. 212, Bryan Passifiume.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Title: Catch a fire : the blaze and bust of the Canadian cannabis industry / Ben Kaplan.
Names: Kaplan, Ben, author.
Description: Includes index.
Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 2024045698X | Canadiana (ebook) 20240457080 | ISBN 9781459754652 (softcover) | ISBN 9781459754669 (PDF) | ISBN 9781459754676 (EPUB)
Subjects: LCSH: Marijuana industry—Canada. | LCSH: Marijuana—Economic aspects—Canada.
Classification: LCC HD9019.M382 C3 2025 | DDC 338.1/73790971—dc23
We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Ontario, through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit and Ontario Creates, and the Government of Canada.
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Printed and bound in Canada.
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Cannabis, as a moment, was massive, fast, addictive, and insane. When Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau ended prohibition and legalized pot, he not only changed the culture, he blew up the business world. From 2018 to 2019 — six months before and after marijuana legalization on October 17, 2018 — sixteen Canadian cannabis start-ups had multibillion-dollar market capitalizations.
Fourteen of these companies were led by Canadian originals, risk-takers having the time of their lives.
Marijuana businesses were led by novices in the public markets and by the government, novices in dealing drugs. Big money was made. Big money was lost. And Canada had the eyes of the world on its policy. Israel, Germany, the United Kingdom, Jamaica, the United States, and, yes, countries all over the world have followed, and will continue to follow, Canada’s revolutionary clusterfuck.
Profiteers ravaged the sector. And the hype behind weed, which twisted up Drake, Martha Stewart, Snoop Dogg, the Toronto Raptors, and me, created a frenzy that, like a joint at a Tragically Hip show, couldn’t last.
Ninety-seven percent of the value of those sixteen Canadian cannabis start-ups disappeared. Every single one of the Canadian founders is gone.
It was a fizzy, fuzzy epoch of whistle blowers, IPOs, Hells Angels, private planes, and edibles; a billion-dollar company in Edmonton with a Gmail account for investor relations. This book will trace the journeys of some of the major players in this heady period of speculation and fantasy — marijuana, from golden goose to smoke cloud, blown away.
For Matthew and Esme, my babies.
DON’T DO DRUGS!
Contents
Prologue: The First Hit
Part I: Risk
1. Patient Zero
2. Government Weed