Editors’ Note: This is the transcript version of the podcast we published last Wednesday with Bruce Linton. Please note that due to time and audio constraints, transcription may not be perfect. We encourage you to listen to the podcast, embedded below, if you need any clarification. We hope you enjoy!
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Rena Sherbill: Welcome again to the Cannabis Investing Podcast, where we speak with C level executives, scientists and law and sector experts to provide actionable investment insight and the context with which to understand the burgeoning cannabis industry. I‘m your host, Rena Sherbill.
Good morning, everybody, or good afternoon or good evening, whenever you‘re listening to this podcast. I hope you‘re doing well, as we all try to maintain our sanity and safety in these wild, wild, wild times that we‘re living in. I hope this podcast gives you some information, some knowledge and empowerment. That‘s what we‘re trying to do, as I‘ve mentioned, certainly over the last few weeks. But in general we‘re trying to build our wealth, build our portfolio, learn some things in the process, learn about the cannabis sector.
There‘s nobody better to learn from this sector than Bruce Linton. So really excited to have Bruce on the show today. You may know him as the Founder and former Chairman and CEO of Canopy Growth Corporation (NYSE:CGC), which was the first cannabis company in North America to be listed on a major stock exchange and also to be included on a major stock index. While Bruce was leading Canopy Growth, is when Constellation Brands (NYSE:STZ) invested CAD$4 billion in the company and kind of changed the face of the cannabis industry as we know it. Bruce currently holds a number of positions, including being Executive Chairman of Vireo Health (OTCPK:VREOF), which is mostly what we‘re talking about today.
He is also involved with Gage Cannabis Company, something he talks about; Martello Technologies Group, he co-founded Ruckify. He‘s also involved with a number of other companies, some of which he talks about later on in the interview.
Bruce is somebody that is very exciting to talk to, especially as we‘re going through these crazy times. In the face of this global pandemic, it‘s very interesting to note that the Cannabis Stocks are basically up. They‘re actually doing better than the S&P 500 this week, which is very interesting and certainly a change. To navigate the space and the markets in general, Bruce is the perfect person to get some insight from. He‘s been around the sector for a long time. He‘s, some say basically started the serious cannabis sector.
I mentioned in my last episode that I would be discussing my personal investing journey in the cannabis sector and which stocks I have purchased and discussing that with listeners. Because of the Coronavirus, we want to take a another week to discuss this in more detail given how many changes there are afoot and some management changes that have also happened in the past couple of weeks. So we‘re going to get into that next week, don‘t worry still on the table.
And in greater cannabis news, we‘re not going to get too much into it because we‘re really excited to hear what Bruce has to say. He talks a lot about investing in the time of Corona, how cannabis companies may adapt to the possibility of major long lasting changes that come from this pandemic. And while they may benefit from this higher demand that the virus and this whole lockdown is having, the good news is, is that many states have deemed cannabis an essential item. So consumers — patients are still able to get it and that‘s obviously a reflection in this record revenue that we‘ve seen from some companies.
But obviously it can also be less good news for other companies. It‘s disrupting supply chains, it‘s pushed underfunded companies, perhaps to collapse or certainly to the brink of collapse. It will be interesting. There was already a shakeout period coming. It will be interesting to see how much this accelerates that. And the acquisition and joint venture discussion is something that we talk about with Bruce also today.
In kind of weird news 48North Cannabis (OTCPK:NCNNF) announced, pretty suddenly the departure of their CEO, Alison Gordon. 48North was one of a very few companies to be led by woman at the helm. Gordon was replaced by Charles Vennat, who has been serving as 48North‘s Chief Corporate Officer. Of course, we can‘t be too surprised because many CEOs have left major cannabis companies this year. Most of them — most of the incoming management speaking of a need to cut costs and boost profitability.
The weird thing about 48North is they‘ve touted themselves as a woman-led company focused on women and it‘s a company that a couple of guests have mentioned recently. Oren Benoff mentioned it a couple weeks ago, Shiry Eden mentioned it a few weeks ago as well as a stock to look at. It‘s curious why they would replace a woman at a woman-led company on women-focused products with a man but certainly interested to see what they come up with and how investors respond to that news.
Before we begin a brief disclaimer, nothing on this podcast should be taken as investment advice of any sort. I do not have positions in any of the stocks mentioned. You can subscribe to us on Libsyn, Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Play and Stitcher. And as always, we‘d really appreciate it if you‘d leave us a review. For reference purposes this interview was recorded on March 17, 2020.
Bruce, welcome to the Cannabis Investing Podcast. Really, really excited to have you on the show. Thanks so much for joining us.
Bruce Linton: Well, good to be here.
RS: So anybody I think that knows the cannabis industry knows your name, knows a little bit of your background, but tell us a little bit for listeners that may not know full extent of it, your journey to the cannabis industry itself.
BL: Yeah. So Canada, right behind Israel in 2001 made it so that there was a federally legal program by which people in Canada could get access to cannabis. And it wasn‘t that a politician had some insightful action. It was in fact, the courts in Canada said that there was medical benefit. So medical benefit was the opinion of the courts in 2001 for cannabis, and in Canada, you can‘t withhold medicines from citizens.
So all these physicians and others saying there‘s not enough medical evidence is quite curious as the courts of Canada, almost two decades ago said there was, but that platform ran in Canada for about 12 years, and it had several mutations that turned it into often a troublesome platform for production delivery, both for the patients and for the police because they couldn‘t identify who had the right to have cannabis versus who just had some.
And so I, in 2012, saw a window of opportunity where the government was going to actually create a real macro platform where they were going to govern how the cannabis was made, how it was shipped, everything about it, so that the patients actually would get certainty and the police would know where it came from. And because I was a tech person, then I guess, therefore still am now, my view was that if you‘re the regulator of cannabis, your principal worry isn‘t necessarily about the patient. It‘s about you looking stupid. And what would make a regulator look stupid would be the absence of controls, meaning no chain of custody, the wrong cannabis goes to the wrong person, or the wrong things happen to the cannabis in production.
And so I used to deal with companies in Israel like Bezeq in my data communications world at Nymex and others in the U.S. And so the companies I had that been involved with as co-founder or early person, we were really good at not losing data packets and it was my view I‘d probably be therefore really good at not losing cannabis. And when I started my company, I principally started a tech company that produces cannabis rather than a cannabis company that begrudgingly adopted tech. And I think that‘s a critically different approach that helped us grow rapidly.
So when I began, one person with an idea over the course of six years, turned into a 4,000 person company operating 10 sites in Canada, 16 countries around the world, and a market valuation in U.S. dollars of about $16 billion, with about $4 billion cash in the bank, when I was sort of shown the door in July of this past year.
And the scalability of that was really based upon technology is scalable, and everything in our system was scalable, meaning when we designed the first system, so a bureaucrat could feel comfortable. With three keystrokes, we could tell you where any gram of cannabis was in production, in processing, in storage, in shipment in the houses it has gone to on a medical basis, which meant if we had to do a recall, due to some adverse reaction or concern of an adverse reaction, with three keystrokes, we could cause that outcome to occur. And so if you‘re a bureaucrat, you really do prefer that chain of custody and command. And so that‘s kind of how I began.
Clearly there are lots of people are far more expert in almost every aspect including cannabis strains, production methodologies, but over the course of five or six years, what really became evident is where we are today is cannabis is not the finished product, it‘s the ingredient to the finished product. And therefore, we spent quite a lot of time and money in my prior company at Canopy in last three or four years on intellectual property development around how you compose that ingredient in ways that are both repeatable and reliable, whether it‘s for medical or rec is irrelevant when you‘re doing science.
RS: And how long, from when you left Canopy, did you know that you wanted to get into a different part of the cannabis space? Or did you know immediately?
BL: I never found running a business stressful whatsoever. It was purely enjoyable. And so when you get fired, running the one that you created, you know that what do I like every day. I like going to do stuff with people, I don’t like causing a disruptive effect on existing markets. So as soon as I was out, the reason I was quite visible and being fired is that I wasn‘t fired for stealing anything or doing something at work, you shouldn‘t, I was fired because I‘m a disagreeable person who wants to do things my way, which is generally how entrepreneurs act. And it wasn‘t that I was so pigheaded that I wanted to do only my plan. But if I had input from others, and I felt that those inputs actually led to a direction I disagreed with, I wasn‘t going to do that.
And so I made myself very visible in the morning I was fired because I have a reason and an approach with media which when I hired the first media manager at Canopy I explained to them that even if I accidentally committed a triple homicide, we would say yes to media. Because I do that — I do media when I want it, you do media all the time. Earned media is the number one way to gain credibility in a sector that‘s actually in prohibition or a topic that has discomfort. On that basis, I did that media and somewhere north of a couple hundred companies thought that I should be helpful with them across all kinds of spaces, Crypto to Cannabis, psychedelics, to conventions.
And so I carefully went through a whole lot of diligence and I ended up with a small handful of companies, which I thought had the potential to both financially multiply my return if I invested capital, but also not to be an embarrassment to any sector they‘re in and reputationally, both improve mine and that I would improve theirs.
RS: And how did you decide? I know you‘re on record as saying part of the reason you came to Vireo was their emphasis on IP, which you mentioned a little bit that you were developing at your time at Canopy as well. Was that the main focus and how hard was it to settle on Vireo itself? Or did it feel like synchronicity at that point?
BL: Well, that was one of five reasons, I would say, was probably four in my brain. So the first thing I liked about them is that they were very science-driven. Science is a discipline. And so when they approached things, they approached it with a methodical discipline. So for example, when they were selling and are selling vaporizable products, they actually had an adverse reporting tool that they‘ve used from day one to track whether or not there been any adverse incidents reported. This was way before vape came. And so the effect of that was that they had certainty, they had no underlying liability from their products and effects. Safety was correlated directly with legal products.
So I like that discipline. I like the fact that if you look at the geographies in which they have active operations, seven states in which they‘re primarily active are all currently in the US medical only, which means that the market has the potential to get materially larger when a recreational access is added. And the places in which they operate their medical only a lot of them are well governed. So think of New York, State Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Arizona, those are ready to rip states.
And so one of the companies I‘m involved with is a single state operators called Gauge and the reason I was there is I wanted to see what kind of torque you got in a place like Michigan, when it went from medical only to medical and Rec. And the answer is, humongous, like 10x 20x, depending on how you position. And so I thought in the context of Vireo, if you have science discipline, you built a platform for production and you begin to have initiating retail, that means you can create the best locations to sell your products so that you‘re most ready for the torque that happens with the second gear, which is recreational access.
And so those combinations really drove me to have a view that they could go, they weren‘t that huge yet. So when you think about if you invest $1, in a company, which is 50 million, and it has those attributes, it‘s much easier to have a potential rate of return that sees it become $200 million then if it‘s already 500 million and you‘re hoping. So I thought the combination and their valuation which was directly correlated with not being particularly well known, I congratulate you for actually knowing them and asking me.
I‘ve said for a long time people almost never buy a stock in a company they‘ve never heard of. The opportunity to take that combination of things that I just described and then elevate the visibility, I think will create increased value just because they can be selected as a stock to own.
RS: Well, we actually had Dr. Kingsley on this show, in this summer and I think your coming on — so it was on my radar from that and then I think you coming on definitely bumped visibility a tremendous amount. In speaking of their geographic footprint and Vireo‘s geographic footprint, you mentioned New York as one of the up and coming states. Cuomo has been recently on record as saying that that‘s in the proposed budget or should be in the proposed budget?
How do you see these states playing out, I know right now, it‘s hard to know how anything‘s about to play out as we‘re all kind of hunkered down in our homes awaiting a pandemic to pass through. But what‘s your view on these states, do you think it‘s going to continue to be a state by state process, or do you see just scheduling at the federal level happening?
BL: Well, I think that discussion would have happened in the normal course election, which is for sure is not going to be. I don‘t even know, will they have an election in November. I think anybody that says for sure they will, has to decide why they hold that view. Because how do you do an election that people can‘t congregate? And how do you have — you can just see where that goes. So this election in a normal course would have had a topic called federal regulation of cannabis. And I think what they would have said on each side of the political divide is that, we support whatever the state‘s support, meaning that as a federal politician, you‘re not causing friction because you‘re only agreeing with what they‘ve already said they want to do.
So that in the context of, say, Colorado, where they have medical and rec, that would be federally permissible, and companies operating in that jurisdiction with state licenses would be permissible to access things like NASDAQ or NYSE capital market listings for banking. But if they don‘t get to that topic, I think we continue on as we are for some time and I don‘t know that that improves anything. I‘m frankly, now of the view that this topic probably won‘t be part of the election and that it‘s going to go on to states and that means states will have to decide what they want to do and do it. But I think states like New York are clear what they want, New Mexico. I can see Arizona going there. So this I think might end up being more of the same for the next several years despite the fact that at polls extremely well to change it.
RS: And do you see if and when the next election comes, do you see it as being part of the topic then? Or who knows, or the further it becomes a state by state process, maybe they just let that play out.
BL: I think they just let it play out regrettably forbid [ph]. And it‘s not because it‘s marijuana, it‘s the topic polls extremely well. Like if you ask the majority of Americans, do you agree with what your state is doing with regard to cannabis? The people in the states say yes, because these things have passed various mechanisms of approval. So it‘s not a touchy topic to do it that way. The problem really is that there are a lot of other topics like COVID, yes, trade war, yes, should they exit jurisdictions where they‘re at war, probably so that I‘m worried that juggling this into the agenda of actual decision tree topics is getting ever more complicated in the U.S.
RS: And speaking about Vireo’s emphasis on science first and their emphasis on IPs, you talked a little bit about on the conference call about developing strategic partnerships, having some acquisitions possibly. What‘s the plan there, does that still stand and what is it that you are looking for in terms of partnerships, and/or acquisitions?
BL: I have a call with the guys this morning. I have a couple ideas on acquisitions right now. First thing we had to do is make sure that we had financial stability. So, there were a lot of people a bit surprised that we were able to raise a little more than $8 million. This was two weeks ago today that that announcement went out, because the stocks had been falling every day for quite three or four or five days before that. We had a two day window with the prices stabilized, we closed the financing. And as you‘ve noted, the stocks have fallen even more and more rapidly since then, but with the cash is in the bank, the company is stable, which means out there, there are companies that do not enjoy such a similar state and they should therefore be purchased inexpensively relative to four weeks ago.
And so there are a number now I want to look at and I want to think if they can actually accelerate our path to profitability, the depth we have in geographies. So this is now believe it or not, to me, this is one of the best times ever, to actually make the company bigger and stronger through transactions that are accretive. And so I‘ll try and bring that level of aggression to our topics today because a lot of times if bad things are happening, people want to hunker down. I think it‘s really actually much better time to go and do something.
RS: And talk about the fact that you have the ability to do that now, is that a matter of having been financially austere up until now, making the right decisions, making smart decisions, not. Another thing that you guys talked about on the last conference call was shrinking your own retail footprint or not emphasizing that as much emphasizing more, putting your branding in third-party dispensaries. Is that part of the reason why you guys are now able to have access to capital and have these private placement offers, like you mentioned.
BL: I wish I can say, yes, but no. The reality is, everybody wrote a check, including myself, wrote a check because they‘ve written check with me before. And they put the money in because the focus now is on how do we increase top line and margin which the reality is, is increasing our retail footprint subordinating other brands under us. We have a ton of production that production needs to flow through our own vertical integration, otherwise, you‘re giving away 50% margin.
And so we have that opportunity right now. And about one-third of the total funds we raise will be used to increase our direct consumer retail footprint, because those spots under medical once grabbed can‘t be used by others necessarily for their rec applications, should the markets change like New York, I think might. And when you do that, it means so for example, if you grow cannabis and don‘t have a store, you need to sell it to me under your own brand at a 50% discount to what I sell it for.
That is not that margin for having a store when you‘re already selling your own products, and you have good locations. So what we‘re going to do is more aggressively, utilize our own production assets so that we vertically integrate and capture all the margin and all the opportunity for future expansion.
RS: So given the — given the fact that we‘re dealing with some variables that we — it‘s impossible to predict, but within this — the reality that we‘re in, what‘s your vision, the next, let‘s say if we‘re talking a year from now, and then a couple years from now, where do you see Vireo heading? What‘s your goal there?
BL: Yeah, I think they‘re going to continue to do a very good job of registering patients and actually being responsible and how they manage them and continue to seek ways that they can get to dosages and titration and detailed answers for them. And that base plate information will create interesting products for rec, I think at least three to five of the markets they‘re in are going to become medical and rec over the next 18 months.
So I think that the company has an upside driven by responsible production that gets really leveraged into a bigger market and those core markets, and that our retail footprint will be in the right locations and meaningful. So we‘ll capture the opportunity that‘s at hand. And if you do it well, the cost of creating that retail is more than fully recovered in less than the first year of operating honestly in a place like Michigan. So it‘s pretty easy to get excited about build it, crank it and really see the upside.
Now, over the COVID period, which is an undefined period, I don‘t know maybe people get used to ordering online a lot more. Maybe people get used to delivery a lot more. And so we need to have our capacity there, we‘ve already had a delivery platform available in New York. And so part of my discussion with the guys today is going to be about what if COVID actually has a duration of time that changes people‘s buying patterns and that that is a durable effect after COVID disappears. So you know, think about those things.
RS: Is that being discussed a lot about how much these temporary situations just like how you‘re mentioning how much they‘re going to affect or change consumer behavior long- term?
BL: Well, I suspect they‘re not being — I think to myself about it a lot. But I don‘t know with… When I think about these things, there‘s always something that is durable that comes from a crisis. So, 9/11 gave us airports with very different security methodologies that didn‘t disappear. 2008 gave us a number of financial constraints and controls on banks and things like stress testing, that didn‘t happen before. And I think COVID is going to give us a pattern of consumption interaction that‘s different than we had before.
And so, if you can predict what that might be and play successfully into it as a business, providing the services that people want in this time, they will become a durable option for them after.
RS: And are there still plans I know there were was talk of kind of shelving the Puerto Rico plans. Are there plans to go global? I know that might also Coronavirus might also plan to this as well.
BL: Yeah, I think MSOs that are a little bit deeper and a little bit narrow are going to be rewarded. So we have three states which we have licenses better largely inactive. So they would include Puerto Rico, Massachusetts as you know two big ones that people would know. I‘m not sure that in Nevada largely for us, so those ones either we have to find a way to concentrate them with others or determine if we‘re actually going to put enough money to it to make it work. If not, I don‘t they‘re irrelevant and don‘t need to be a distraction.
RS: I‘m interested in your thoughts on Cannabis 2.0 didn‘t go as well as people might have hoped or thought. What are your thoughts on the state of that industry, that part of the industry, the edibles, the beverages, do you think it‘s just a matter working out the regulations?
BL: I think it‘s too early to determine right? The best beverage in the world with cannabis in it is launching in Canada as we speak and by the end of this month will be available at multiple provinces states. So you can buy it online and shipped to your house. There‘s an instance of where I think people are actually going to subscribe to that and when COVID is over, they‘re going to actually prefer these beverages. So I think 2.0 is just barely, it‘s hasn‘t yet launched and we‘ll have to judge how it‘s working about a year from now. And then 3.0, we‘ll see will start to unfold during that same time because clinical trials unless fully disrupted would be ongoing so that the data could be read on whether or not as a primary insomnia mechanism of dealing with, there are certain combinations of cannabinoids will work the best, will work for geriatric care. And so I think 3.0 is going to fall and overlap with 2.0 and 2.0 is just beginning.
RS: And it seems like Vireo, that‘s like the sweet spot like those two overlapping is right where Vireo kind of differentiates itself I would think.
BL: Yeah, I think. So when I think they have good connective tissue to a lot of opportunities that might come in from foreign geographies. So when you‘re credible science driven entity, there are a lot of people that say like I see that as an adult version of what‘s going on. I‘d like to be owned by you and that could be anywhere on the planet.
RS: Speaking of kind of the cannabis industry, that ecosystem, you‘re not just in Vireo Health you have your hands in a few different things. How do you decide what to get involved with and what to lend, as you said, your very influential name to?
BL: That‘s a good question. So I tried to think about what did I have visibility or access to previously and what do I want more of? So things like hemp and CBD. I even in Canopy was of the view that CBD should have been a minor position, not a primary position for what we were processing. However, we were in the cannabinoid business, we weren‘t in the industrial products business. So hemp as a disruptor, I think is massively relevant. It‘s sustainable, which is a big headline theme, I think, for the next three to five years in investing, and that it‘s disruptive to anything from carbon fiber to cotton.
And so I looked at that big theme, and that‘s what assembling of special purpose acquisition corp., to put more of that together because I think a bunch of these fields in industrial supply are ready for disruption, the auto sector and others. I really I’m kind of long on a lot of U.S. and I‘ll call it MSO single state like I think the U.S. market if you looked at it now the companies are probably three times better for one-third of the price than they were a year ago. I do like the topic of psychedelics because I think they‘ve been poorly governed have the potential efficacy greater than cannabinoids on certain mental states.
And so I‘m involved with that simply because I think if you have dumb rules against ingredients that have bias without any foundation, people right now want to know what can you do for states of depression or PTSD or addiction, and if we can remedy some of these state issues, you probably won‘t be judged for having used ingredients that were historically prohibited will be fair. And so I‘m active on stuff like that, but I‘m also active in software, things like Martello and Rockefeller, Martello right now as busy as can be because that software company enables people to work remotely on a reliable basis the fact that we actually have a decent quality Zoom meeting is good. I had several bad ones yesterday, I had issues connecting phones and bridges. So Martello is in that business and it‘s a pretty busy time for them.
And I like the sharing economy. So one of the companies I co-founded is called Ruckify, R-U-C-K-I-F-Y. And when COVID is over, we‘re going to all be in a recession. And everybody‘s still going to need stuff but they‘re not going to have capital to buy it and what they‘re going to do is Ruckify rather than buy it, which means to share and rent between peer to peer, Udemy. And so I think Ruckify right now is busy, busy building up the tech but as soon as we get to maybe whenever October November and we‘re in recession, but we‘re not in COVID‘s grasp, that thing is going to take off like a rocket.
RS: Really interesting. The fact that you have, you have an expansive interest given that you‘re — just what you mentioned, and also just as an entrepreneur, as a trailblazer, your view of the industry coming from Canada to the states, has it changed or evolved at all in that changing of geography?
BL: Yeah, I would say it has. Sometimes when you‘re outside of the company, like Canopy you see it differently. And what I see there is something that I didn‘t realize how advanced we had become relative to the global platform or competitors. And now when I look around and see that the company, I think it has about $2.5 billion in the bank, that seems like it was probably a good thing to get them there. I see how much of an influence that created on the world. And then I start looking at where each of those pieces could be in other companies.
I would say that the only downside of what I‘m doing is I think I began self isolation largely 10 months ago, because when you‘re involved with several companies, you‘re more like a firefighter than a CEO or a leader. You come in, you do your weekly calls, you look at everything that‘s going on, and then you try to find solutions to it, but you‘re not showing up and interacting with a group of people that you‘re the leader. You‘re interacting with a group of people that my phone rings exclusively when there are problems, and I don‘t dislike that, but it is a different process of being a person in the context of business and I don‘t do business to make money. And it may sound stupid, but I do things because I want to do them. And then if you do them really well, oddly enough, sometimes they turn into good cash returns. And so I guess I‘ve become better at self isolation because of the prior practice, but it is a different way to operate as a person.
RS: Yeah. And if you had to give advice to investors looking at the space and not knowing how to separate the wheat from the chaff, let‘s say, what advice do you — do you talk to investors on a regular basis?
BL: I have four investor calls today. So if the instrument‘s put together in a way that looks so fancy, so elegant, but you don‘t necessarily know or like the underlying entity, forget it. Because there‘s so many things being packed up, it reminds me most of the asset base, back credit, the ABC stuff. If you don‘t have a portfolio or like it, why are you buying it and I‘m seeing so many things packed up with a full warrant and a 12% or 20%, carry and blah, blah, blah. Listen, at the end of the day if the underlying business is not something that you fundamentally believe in it, like stay away from it, because there‘s a lot of creative efforts out there to package up stuff that I don‘t comprehend.
And so I‘ll still go back to the basics like does this company operate and produce products in a way that you would actually want to be a customer. And regrettably for most the answer is no.
RS: Before there was some talk about like descheduling at the federal level, there was a lot of excitement around the Safe Banking Act. Do you see that as coming back into the fold, maybe passing more cannabis friendly legislation that will help companies a bit in their path to profitability.
BL: I don‘t know that it actually — implementations everything, and to me is like it‘s almost like it what it does is it actually opens the door to a really useful discussion. It doesn‘t actually becoming in of itself particularly valid or useful. Because does that enable listing on a US exchange, does that give you governance over things like the tax regime? So you can actually deduct your operating costs or retail from your income. I don‘t know that it does any of that.
RS: So do you see it — even if it doesn‘t help, do you see it as coming back on? Do you see it as being back in the discussion?
BL: I think it‘ll be back from the discussion. I think it‘s a bellwether, almost like a testing balloon to determine if they can actually have a real and valid discussion about making this — so that it‘s federally permissible and therefore federally legal if governed by the state. That would be a useful outcome. This might actually enable that discussion and therefore could be useful if it gets to be back on the agenda and executed.
RS: Aside from the obvious COVID answer, is there anything that‘s giving you pause in the industry right now or wish that it could be maybe slightly different?
BL: I think the timing of the capital market retracting from the prior high and irrational valuations not attached to the operating value of the companies, incredibly timed with COVID, because it‘s been compounded in terms of how serious the downturn is and access to capital for the companies. The reason that‘s problematic is it‘s going to hurt a lot of people, but it might expedite the whole process of getting to the valid companies. And so, I‘m watching it from that perspective, more than anything else.
RS: Okay. Well, Bruce, thanks so much for taking the time and sharing your knowledge and expertise with us in these unprecedented times. Nice to talk to you.
BL: Okay, stay inside, stay away from people and try to stay sane with all that prior conditions.
RS: Thanks so much for listening to the Cannabis Investing podcast. Same old content, we are not. Subscribe or follow us on Seeking Alpha, Libsyn, Apple podcast, Spotify, Google Play, or Stitcher and we‘d really appreciate it if you can leave us a review on Apple podcasts, so it can help other investors find our show.
If you have feedback or questions, please email us at rena+canpod@seekingalpha.com. That‘s R-E-N-A+C-A-N-P-O-D@seekingalpha.com . Thanks so much for listening and see you next time.
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