Forget Trump, The Russians Are In The Cannabis Game

The analogy makes sense to us.. Oregon Live reports

“Itʼs just like Russia in the 1990s,” Jordan told Bloomberg in 2017. “Weʼre talking about an industry in its infancy that needs to be built up from scratch, legislation and all.”

Backing Jordan is Andrei Blokh, a billionaire Russian dairy tycoon. Blokh holds U.S. citizenship but lives in Moscow. He owns 28% of Curaleaf’s stock; Jordan controls 31%.

Of Curaleaf’s five board members, three – including Jordan – bring experience in Russian finance to their foray in the new frontier of legal marijuana in the U.S. As states move one by one to legalize recreational marijuana, Jordan sees a similar opportunity to the one presented by the breakup of Soviet industries.

“Itʼs just like Russia in the 1990s,” Jordan told Bloomberg in 2017. “Weʼre talking about an industry in its infancy that needs to be built up from scratch, legislation and all.”

An inevitable consolidation

Marijuana legalization is taking place piecemeal, with each state setting its own rules and licensing standards. Medical marijuana is legal in 33 states, while recreational marijuana is legal in 10 – including Oregon, Washington and California. Newly passed legislation in Illinois will make that the 11th state on Jan. 1.

Jurisdictions generally limit the number of licenses to grow and sell marijuana. So big cannabis companies are racing to get bigger, buying each other in a race to capture regional markets.

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Curaleaf has 43 dispensaries, a dozen grow sites and 11 processing facilities – all concentrated on the East Coast. It also sells a line of cannabidiol, CBD, which doesn’t include THC, the agent that produces the high associated with smoking pot.

https://www.oregonlive.com/business/2019/06/behind-portlands-blockbuster-marijuana-deal-a-russian-billionaire-cannabis-consolidation.html

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