Is Biden's announcement the spark that leads to federal legalization? The Cannabis Investor Series Sponsored by PodConx is back for the Fifth year. This year, the Series will again feature the cannabis industry's top investors, reviewing how the current macroeconomic cycle is affecting the cannabis industry, what to expect in 2023 and sharing investment opportunities and strategies. In today's episode, Dan Humiston is joined by Chris Walsh the CEO of MJBiz to discuss how President Biden pardoning federal cannabis prisoners will impact the industry. MJBizCon: Nov 15th - Nov 18th in Las Vegas; use discount code PODCAST for 10% off Registration. Produced by PodConx MJBulls - https://podconx.com/podcasts/raising-cannabis-capital Dan Humiston - https://podconx.com/guests/dan-humiston Chris Walsh - https://podconx.com/guests/chris-walsh MJBiz - https://mjbiz.com/ Recorded on Squadcast - https://squadcast.fm/
Is Biden's announcement the spark that leads to federal legalization?
The Cannabis Investor Series Sponsored by PodConx is back for the Fifth year. This year, the Series will again feature the cannabis industry's top investors, reviewing how the current macroeconomic cycle is affecting the cannabis industry, what to expect in 2023 and sharing investment opportunities and strategies. In today's episode, Dan Humiston is joined by Chris Walsh the CEO of MJBiz to discuss how President Biden pardoning federal cannabis prisoners will impact the industry.
MJBizCon: Nov 15th - Nov 18th in Las Vegas; use discount code PODCAST for 10% off Registration.
MJBulls - https://podconx.com/podcasts/raising-cannabis-capital
Dan Humiston - https://podconx.com/guests/dan-humiston
Chris Walsh - https://podconx.com/guests/chris-walsh
MJBiz - https://mjbiz.com/
Recorded on Squadcast - https://squadcast.fm/
Chris Walsh MJBulls
Dan Humiston: [00:00:00] Today at MJ Bulls, we are continuing the fifth annual Cannabis Investor series. Sponsored by Pod connects to cannabis industry's exclusive network of cannabis podcasts that actually allows cannabis companies to advertise. Go to pod connects.com to connect to more cannabis listeners. On today's show, we're joined by Chris Walsh, the CEO of MJ Biz, the industry's premier media company, and the producer of the industry's annual convention, MJ Biz Con, coming up November 15th through the 18th in Las Vegas.
Chris, welcome to the show.
Chris Walsh: Hey, thanks for having me on.
Dan Humiston: Well, I'm glad that you were able to. I know how busy you are, so I'm glad you're able to jump on as the CEO of the industry's largest media company, Your approach is somewhat rare in that you're usually very measured and seem to avoid hype, which is why I thought you'd be the perfect person to discuss President Biden's recent pardoning of all the federal cannabis prisoners.
Chris, immediately after the announcement, we saw a big [00:01:00] jump in the public markets. Should investors look at this news as legitimate sign, or is this just another over hypey gesture?
Chris Walsh: Well, you, you prefaced it well in that I, I typically am more skeptical, you know, as a, as. Journalists back in the day and running a, a media operation, I do try to temper expectations and anyone who's been in cannabis for a year or or longer knows that, uh, you know, things don't go as planned. And, and a lot of the things that look positive end up on a federal level end up just kind of fizzling out.
So anyways, I am, I'm usually ver very skeptical and I don't know what's gonna happen after this, but as what I will say is, I, I do think this was a very historic move. Uh, we've never seen a sitting president do anything like this, let alone even really address marijuana in any way that's positive or in any way at all.
So I think that's, when you look at the kind of history and the timeline of cannabis at the federal level, this is one of those moments where you're like, Hey, that was one of the milestones. I mean, a sitting president [00:02:00] pardoned all these people. simple marijuana possession urge governors to do it, and said they're gonna aggressively look into the scheduling of marijuana.
That's pretty significant to me. What it means for investors though. Wasn't surprised to see stocks rocket. They rock it on any type of little positive news and they plunge on any type of little negative news and then they kind of fell back to earth the next day in a lot of cases. Uh, for investors, I think it's interesting because depending on where you sit, if you are taking a strategic look at this industry, this might be enough for you to say, Okay, I see where this is going and we're gonna see change at some.
And maybe it's not for six months, maybe it's not for two years, but you know what? I'm gonna make my bets now rather than wait on the sidelines. This might be that, that indication of looking out over the mid to long term that opens the door for you to say, I'm gonna get involved now, or I'm gonna put more money into cannabis.
Dan Humiston: about where this is going, I mean, ultimately making this legal federally would be the goal [00:03:00] everything to go perfectly from this point forward. What are the next steps that should happen or that need to occur?
Chris Walsh: Well, things definitely won't go perfectly. And again, you gotta look at this as a long term play. If you're an investor, I wouldn't buy into the immediate hype. State governors, which we've already seen indications of, will take this seriously and reexamine their laws when it comes to possession of marijuana. And that's another chin in the armor. And then really, if this lends support to the Safe Banking Act, Where we've got a lot of optimism that that could pass here by early January.
Don't know what's gonna happen, and I'm still skeptical, but this might kind of further fuel those efforts. But we need a banking fix that has to happen and it has to happen soon. the industry needs that type of catalyst and then, you know, things start snowballing from there, this isn't a panacea, this something that changes everything necessarily.
You know, banking would be a huge win. And if. If you, what Biden said and did, if that [00:04:00] fuels those efforts and we get some kind of, uh, this bill passed in the next couple months, that, that is significant. So it's gonna be moves like Biden made, it's gonna be this going into the public awareness in a major way.
And actually the federal government starting to do things about the situation with marijuana, which they've done nothing. so it's gonna take multiple steps. It's gonna take banking, as the next really big step. And, hopefully this, fuels those efforts.
Dan Humiston: Yeah, I, I hope you're right. People get excited about anything that happens that seems positive in cannabis. But to be fair, there's a lot of potential trap doors, and
we always say that doubles are in the details. Are there some things that on the surface will look like a win, but could actually be a loss that we all need to be aware of?
Chris Walsh: Sure. I mean, rescheduling could be one of them. You know, moving cannabis from schedule one up there with heroin and the world's most dangerous drugs, you know, marijuana, there's no way it should be up there. And I think Biden even admitted [00:05:00] that. But you know, a move to schedule two or three could be, terrible for a lot of the companies that are out there now.
There's a ton of unknowns depending on where it falls on, on the controlled substances list, uh, or if it comes off it, completely, which I don't know if it would happen, but there's a lot of pitfall, there's a lot of opportunities. It's hard to go over each potential scenario cuz we don't know how it's gonna play out.
And even a move to schedule two or three, which a lot of people are fearful. Because it could, put up brand new barriers for people in the industry and, and kind of change control of it over time. we don't know how that would play out. the genie out of the bottle with marijuana legalization and does all of a sudden say, Oh, it's scheduled two, so it has to follow all these pharmaceutical type.
rules and regulations like that, that wouldn't work either right now. You can't just kind of stop the industry and pause and rethink it. there's a ton of unknowns and investors hate unknowns. you gotta make a gamble. Uh, at some point, and this might be enough for people, and again, maybe nothing comes of this.
Maybe really this is it. And then everything fizzles [00:06:00] out. When you look at the grand scheme of things, it's moments like this. It's a bill being debated in a committee for the first time. It's this, house taking up something for the first time. It's getting something in front of the Senate for the first time.
They all collectively come together over time to change things, and
this is part of that bigger picture.
Dan Humiston: Yeah, it's Colorado or Washington legalization or the coal memorandum. There's, it's just like one thing on top of the other, and, and there's a lot of small gains, but no. Gigantic ones. Let's switch gears for a second. Over the last, say, 12 months, maybe even 18 months, the investment dollars for cannabis companies that are raising money is really, really dried up.
Are you starting to see any signs where this flow may be actually starting to come back?
Chris Walsh: You know, it's a little too early to tell after the Biden announcement. It's only been, you know, less than a week. but you know, we saw the stocks sore the day after, and then they, you know, again, kind of came back to earth. We, we kind of expected that to happen. So what's the bigger picture?
What I've heard from people in the investment [00:07:00] community is, Their phones did in some cases start ringing off the hook with, investors who were taking a renewed interest. It's not that they're saying we're gonna contribute 10 million to your fund, but it definitely created the interest again, uh, maybe a spark and, uh, it's too early to say if this will translate into anything, tangible.
So I'm still skeptical. About the immediate impact of this and what the immediate impact is on the industry, on the people of, , that are pardoned. That's a huge impact, right? And if this spreads to other states through governors, that's a great impact. But on the industry itself, we just don't know.
So I'd caution investors against buying so much into the hype that they're like, Ah, everything's changing. You know, I'm throwing money at this. , you can't all of a sudden revert to the year 2000 in the tech boom, right? and just copy with your strategies.
but you are gonna have to see and, and determine when is the point where you really think things are gonna change Federally. and those big investment opportunities are gonna come. A lot of people felt that's been over the last couple years, they've invested. is this enough for you to feel like, [00:08:00] I see the writing on the wall and this is the time, but I'm gonna be patient.
It might be years, right? But I know where it's going now and I have a a better
idea how it's gonna play out.
Dan Humiston: You know, my daughter always says, The industry's never gonna be any smaller than it is today. and that's probably the case. Well, let's jump ahead. You're, you're the proverbial canary in the coal mine right now with the, with the upcoming convention. you were expecting 35,000 attendees.
1400 exhibitors. Did you see any immediate, any unexpected bumps over since this announcement came in? Like more people interested that you weren't really expecting to, to happen over those last few days?
Chris Walsh: Yeah, I think we would really see the impact as we get closer, the cannabis crowd is, Late to the party. , we get a lot of attendees that register the day of the day it starts, right? They just show up and say, I wanna get in. so yeah, we saw more interest on our, on our social to our stories.
Like it's, it was a big deal for the industry. There is skepticism. I don't wanna overlook that and, and just say everything's great and awesome and rosy. Uh, some people feel this [00:09:00] was nothing, it wasn't enough. But the industry, if you. And hear what people are saying in it. Um, there's a lot of people who feel like I do could be wrong, that this was a big enough deal.
So yeah, we're, we're seeing, uh, increased interest on our, you know, to coming to the conference, to exhibiting at it, and we'll see if, if that holds based on this news. But, you know, there's a whole new thing to talk about now at MG Bis Con and having discussions. What does it mean? what should I do from a business or investing standpoint?
Should I do anything? Like, does this change anything? And also kind of how do I get through this kind of growing pain period for the industry? Those, those are gonna be big topics, and the election of course, and the five, you know, ballot measures that, could, uh, and likely will continue
to fuel this industry forward.
Dan Humiston: Did you have to change some of your conference sessions to to account for this?
Chris Walsh: You know, we've been doing this for so long, we always leave little holes and, and we leave leeway. I can't tell you how many times, like even a week before the show, something major has happened in the past, especially when we're right near the election. Right? And then you [00:10:00] have like recreational cannabis pass and some, you know, in the first states and there's always something.
So we're pretty good at at being able to pivot. So yeah, we're, we have ways to work this in, in a prominent way cuz we know it's going
to be a big.
Dan Humiston: That's great. Well, we're gonna have links to MJ business show notes. So if you wanna, if you're thinking about registering the conventions November 15th through the 18th in Las Vegas, and as a special gift to our listeners, Chris is offered, uh, 10% off if you use promo code podcast when you're registration.
So got MJ biz, click the link in our show notes. m use podcast. To register and we'll see you in Las Vegas. Chris, thanks for doing this. I appreciate you being on the show today.
Chris Walsh: Thanks for having, having me audio, always an interesting time in
cannabis.