The Growing Potential of Cannabis
20 Apr 2021 · 33 min
In this Barron's "The Way Forward" podcast, host Jack Otter interviews Kim Kovacs, CEO of the ArcView Group, to give financial advisors a comprehensive primer on the cannabis and hemp sectors. Kovacs explains ArcView’s three‑pronged business model – a venture‑pooling platform for early‑stage investors, a FINRA‑approved broker‑dealer (Arfu Capital) that provides M&A, pre‑IPO and other liquidity services, and a consulting arm (Arpu Management Consulting) that advises multinational brands on cannabis strategy and prepares for federal legalization. She clarifies the legal distinction between hemp (≤0.3% THC) and marijuana, outlines the breadth of product categories (edibles, beverages, topicals, CPG, industrial hemp) and the expanding cannabinoid landscape beyond THC and CBD. Market data show $18 billion in sales last year, rapid job creation, and a $300 million capital deployment by ArcView, with a total addressable market potentially exceeding $60 billion once illicit sales and hemp/industrial uses are included. Kovacs highlights hemp’s ESG advantages – carbon sequestration, low water use, regenerative farming, bio‑fuel, bioplastics, animal feed, and its role in carbon‑credit markets – and notes ongoing work with indigenous tribes. She discusses investment vehicles: pure‑play cannabis ETFs (e.g., Amplify), REITs, SPACs, publicly traded ancillary tech firms (Akerna, Dutchie, Weedmaps), and mortgage REITs that lend to cannabis‑related properties. Social‑equity initiatives are addressed through a crowdfunding platform that lets non‑accredited investors fund dispensaries owned by formerly incarcerated entrepreneurs. The conversation also covers consumer‑brand opportunities, such as Martha Stewart’s upcoming CBD skincare line. The episode concludes with a clear actionable recommendation for advisors: start exposure now via ETFs or single stocks, attend ArcView events, and recognize the sector’s professional, highly regulated nature.
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Hello and welcome to The Way Forward. I'm Jack Otter. My guest today is Kim Kovacs, CEO of the ArcView Group, which Kim describes as a nexus for investors in cannabis. Just looking into this industry, I realized, or I found out, I discovered there was so much that I totally didn't understand about the cannabis industry. There's lots of it that has absolutely nothing to do with the popular view of cannabis, which is mind-altering drugs. And of course, there are many layers of ways to invest in this industry. Again, some of which have absolutely nothing to do with the headlines that you might have seen in the cannabis industry. So welcome, Kim. We will dive right in.
Thank you, Jack. It's truly a pleasure to be with you here today.
And I wanna emphasize that advisors listening, whether or not they're interested in investing in this space, can learn a lot from hearing from you. Among other things, while their matriarch and patriarch that are the holders of wealth in their clients may not be interested at all, simply having a working knowledge of this industry could be very helpful when talking to the next generation, the children of their clients. I think it's just like with crypto and some other sort of cutting-edge technologies. It's helpful to know about these areas even if you're not currently investing in them. So Kim, just to give us a baseline as we start out, could you just explain what the ArcView Group is. You basically have 3 businesses, right? A ventures arm, an IBD, and a consulting group.
That's right. So, um, the ArcView Group actually has evolved. We started 11 years ago really as sort of a safe, safe place for investors and companies to get together in person and meet and talk about the industry. We had a big layer of advocacy as well, which we still have. But today we're really a collection of these interrelated companies, as you said. And we provide access to information, capital connections for both operators and investors. We're in cannabis, we're in hemp, we're actually in psychedelics now as well. And we participate at every stage of the investment life cycle. And we do this through, you know, insights, as I said, research and, you know, capital for companies and places for investors. So if I get into it specifically, I'd like to kind of unpack that a little bit, cuz you know, 3 entities under one single umbrella makes it a little confusing. Confusing. But, um, so Ventures is really what I would say is kind of the place to start if you're an early-stage investor and you want to learn about the industry and you want to also participate, what I would say, actively in the process. What it does is it allows you to pool your money with other investors and you kind of sit beside them and make investment decisions together. And you can do it across the section of the industry, so you can invest in specific things like diversity and inclusion, industrial hemp, you like CPG products, you're gonna find like-minded investors. And these, um, pooled investments usually range like $500,000 to a million. And then once you're kind of ready for that sort of next stage, or you want to have it what I would say a little bit more professionally managed, um, then we have Arfu Capital, which as you mentioned is an investment banker. Um, we're FINRA approved. In fact, we were actually founded by a gentleman named Jeff Pascarella, who spent 17 years in compliance at FINRA, and he headed up the crimes division for UBS. So we kind of know a little, you know, a thing or two about the legal and illegal parts of the market. And we really designed this broker-dealer to, you know, provide very solid access to different layers of investment. So everything from M&A to pre-IPO, different kinds of liquidity options. So it's, it's a great place to park some capital.
Certainly important to have that compliance arm. And then finally, the consulting group.
Yeah, so consulting was actually sort of something we just did at ArcView. We were approached by a lot of large, what I would say, multinational companies going, what do we do? You know, we're hearing about this cannabis space, we're hearing about hemp, you know, what is it? Where should we be? Where should we put our money? And so we started our consulting group. We launched it officially at the end of last year. Uh, it's called Arpu Management Consulting, and it's really our research and consulting group housed in one, uh, run by Big Four management consultants. And, uh, what they do is they really look at each individual company and help them decide what their cannabis strategy is. And right now we're getting ready for federal legalization. So that's a new product that we just launched as well this year, which is insane. Uh, that and ESG are the two big things.
So there are obviously a lot of stigmas around this asset class, and I want to talk about those, but could you start— you, you made reference to a few of them. Could you start with just an overview of the many different products we're talking about here, which range from, you know, semi-legal, not legal, to having, again, nothing to do with drugs?
Well, exactly. And do you know, and cannabis actually is a single plant. Most people don't know that. Um, and the only real differentiator is a legal definition. Um, hemp is technically now classified as anything less than 0.3% THC, um, can be sold under the Farm Bill as a hemp product. And cannabis, um, marijuana cannabis has a greater concentration of THC and then needs to be sold through a legal dispensary. And those are only state legal at this time. There are not any federal legal programs, um, unless you're in Canada, which is now federally legal as a country. So those are kinda the two big buckets, and then underneath that, you have just a plethora of different things. So, you know, can't— marijuana, cannabis, you're gonna see form factors like beverages, vape instruments, edibles, tinctures, sublingual, pills, supplements. There are so many different things that have different combinations. And the other part that's interesting about cannabis is that we focus in on these two cannabinoids, THC and CBD, but there's literally 132 other ones that we haven't even explored, or we're just starting to. Things like CBN and CBG, THCV-A, they all have different types of properties and can be used for different things, anything from insomnia to aches and pains and topicals. So it's really quite a broad range of products. I'd like to say, if you're going to go to CVS or some drugstore, You're gonna see pretty soon cannabis in every single aisle of CVS.
So the research on these various products has already been done. It's just, they haven't been productized yet. Is that, is that the case?
I would say to some extent, yes and no. So in Israel, you know, cannabis was actually sort of, or the cannabinoids, the endocannabinoid system was just discovered less than 40, 50 years ago. And we've just barely touched the surface because it's been federally illegal. Universities couldn't, couldn't get grant money. They couldn't research these products or these cannabinoids. And so it's just been, it's just been really nascent. And I'd say that's probably our biggest area is research.
So is it possible to say how much money is currently invested in the legal cannabis market, and, and how you see that growing in the, say, coming 3 to 5 years?
Well, I'd say it's, it's a drop in the bucket compared to what the cannabis industry is. So a lot of the money, especially early-stage cannabis investing, was really done through these, you know, sort of in-person meetings at ARKView. I mean, we've placed more than $300 million into the industry. 2019, there was about $11 billion that was invested. Last year was about probably a third of that. Hopefully this year we're going to see it, you know, eke up a little bit more. But because cannabis is still federally illegal, doesn't open it up to other types of investment vehicles, which normally you'd see in any other industry, right? If you're in technology or you're in life science or you're in agtech, you have access to capital in different ways than you do in the, what we call state legal cannabis market. But one of the things that's really interesting about, and we'll, we'll switch between marijuana and hemp, right? Back and forth. But marijuana, I mean, was deemed essential during the pandemic. It actually created 75,000 jobs last year and is the fastest growing industry in America right now.
Really? When you say fastest growing industry, that's referring to what stage of the process? Not the farming, presumably?
No, not the farming. So in job growth and in sales growth. So compounded annually on the sales side, sales exceeded $18 billion last year. I mean, that's from going from nothing 10 years ago to an $18 billion industry. And still federally illegal, and with new states coming on. I mean, it's really just remarkable. But, you know, back to your original question about capital, is that, you know, a few years ago, I would say it was, it was tough to place capital in the space. You really had to know your operators well. There was still a lot of risk. Um, you know, still it is federally illegal, but there's more banks that are getting involved. There's a lot of programs that the Fed is looking at to secure that, like the SAFE Banking Act and some other things. And let's be honest, with our new administration, I think federal legalization is, it's on its way.
Yeah. One analyst last year was talking about the Biden administration sort of being a call option on legalized cannabis. I wanna follow up on a number you said, which was $18 billion. Yes. Out of a, you know, investors often talk about the TAM, right? The total addressable market. Can you guess as to what that is?
Well, it's probably at this point, and this is marijuana, this isn't hemp because we could really go crazy. We start talking about hemp, but the addressable market also includes the illicit market, right? And, you know, because there are so much in the regulatory side that still we're unpacking a little and figuring out with regard to taxes and jurisdictions. And, you know, so just California alone, probably more than half of our sales are still in the illicit market. So you start to really look at, you know, if you, you double or triple that number, that's really the TAM that we have right now. And that doesn't include anything that happens if it becomes federally legal and states that maybe don't have, you know, a lot of production capabilities or, you know, things like that now all of a sudden become major markets in the US by virtue of the fact that they can get product from California or they can get it from Washington or Oregon. Right now, All of those products that are being, you know, grown in the state of California have to be sold in California. And so we have abundance of product. And so where's it going? Well, it's going to the illicit market. So we still have work to do. You know, I think even when it becomes federally legal, we still will have work to do because states are gonna wanna retain their rights, right?
Sure.
You know, New York just allowed it. Virginia just allowed it. New Mexico. Did you know we had 7 states approve legal cannabis? Since the election.
Wow.
I know.
So that $18 billion triples, you think, sort of conservatively to $60 billion, but then it could go up from there.
It'll, it'll definitely go up there because, you know, it's not even— that doesn't even look at CBD market, it doesn't look at topicals, doesn't look at anything in the industrial hemp side, which to me is really the game changer. Um, industrial hemp hits ESG square, right?
So I, I, I do want you to drill down into that. So for, let's say, you know, one potential group would be advisors who just don't want to touch anything to do with controlled substances. But hemp has nothing to do with that. Can you explain sort of the uses of hemp and why you see it as an exciting market?
Yeah, so I can't wait. This is, this is really my favorite. So in 2018, in December of 2018, the Farm Bill was passed and it legalized hemp in the United States. So hemp as a product, and I think I mentioned this at the beginning, which is 0.3% or less THC, and it's tested. Um, by the way, cannabis and hemp is probably— they are the most tested, um, regulated industries in our country, more so than tobacco and alcohol, any other ones. So we test our products not just when the seeds go in the ground, but we test them all the way through. So 0.3% or less, hemp is legal. Now, what can hemp do? Well, hemp is in— it can be pretty much anything. There's like 50,000 uses for the hemp plant. It can be used for animal feed, for human consumption, biochar, biodiesel, a replacement for concrete, bioplastic, clothing, paper. I mean, it was— it's been used for thousands of years, um, on our planet, and it was arbitrarily made illegal as it was kind of wrapped into the whole marijuana madness. Earlier in the 1920s. And so, there's just so much there and the industrial parts of hemp are just really spectacular. So, I'm going to give you one little example of why I'm so excited about it. One acre of hemp sequesters more carbon than one acre of the Amazon rainforest.
Wow.
Let's think about that for a second because you can actually create how many acreage in one year? You can at least turn it at least twice. Some areas, maybe 3 times. So if you think about how regenerative that is, not just for the farmland, but also the planet in being able to sequester that much more, it's just incredible.
And that carbon's not released in, in whatever products you use to create from the hemp?
That's correct. So for example, we're working with a company that's, that's working in the concrete. So creating hempcrete that's structurally sound will continue to sequester carbon even in its final form for over 100 years.
So, two questions. One just real quick, can you briefly explain the difference kind of at the plant level between— so, is a hemp seed different so it could never be turned into, you know, a pot? And then, but more importantly, what are the qualities that make this such a diverse thing? I mean, it sounds like everything you listed there, we're currently using other materials to make all of those things. Is there something about hemp that makes it superior in some way?
So the hemp plant itself is very similar to the cannabis plant. In fact, they were bred to do different things. And so think about genetics. So hemp seeds, cannabis seeds look very much the same, but they're bred differently. So they're bred for less THC. Some are feminized, some are not. So we allow some of the plants to, you know, populate and others we do not. So marijuana plants are not populated. And so there's a whole farming process behind this that will soon, in fact it's happening now, take over and developing various strains of genetics for very specific uses. So if you want something that's really for the fiber market, let's say, you want a taller plant. You don't want one that's short and bushy, where you might want that if it's really for the CBD oil. You want a little bit more leaf action going on, right? But if you're looking at, you know, the hurd, which is the inner part, can be used for various things as well. So you've got the, the, the hurd, which is the inside of the plant. It's like the fiber part, like if you're opening up a tree. And then you have the outside stalk, which is like the bark, and that can be used also for massive amounts of things. In fact, I was at this expo in Colorado just a bit ago, and there's flooring, and you know, it, it's, it's as hard as wood and can be used as such. And so, you know, you look at the, the way that hemp can be grown is really determined on what the market utilization is going be.
So just on hemp, are these investments mainly still at the venture capital seed stage, no pun intended, or are there, are there publicly traded stocks that are somehow in this industry?
So there are some publicly traded stocks. There's some SPACs that are getting put together. So Bruce Linton and Jeff Whaling just stood up another SPAC for hemp. In particular. But the problem that we have is 2018, so end of 2018, it became legal. The industry isn't ready yet, in my opinion, for big public investment because we're still developing. I mean, if you think about, you know, Henry Ford, can you build the freeway to California? We're building the freeway to California. And so we have to really think of, you know, sort of hemp in that way. I look at it more like a life science investment than I would as something that's going to return it quickly. But that being said, there are some vehicles right now that are pretty attractive, I would say, for RIAs and others to look at, and those are income-producing on property, right? So there's REITs that are involved in this. There are ETFs that are involved in this. So there's, there's a lot of ways to get in and get liquidity sooner. But I would say if you're in the industrial hemp side, it's a little bit of a longer game.
Gotcha. I do want to talk about those ETFs and some of those other opportunities, but let's briefly tack to, for lack of a better term, pot stocks. For people who are interested, what are the investment opportunities? I guess that's mainly in Canada, but there, there are some U.S. companies that are able to take various aspects of the business legally. And obviously for a few years now there's been a lot of hype here, so from an investment standpoint, is, is this a slightly dangerous area to get into?
You know, I think like anything, you really need to, to understand. I mean, you said it very aptly at the beginning, you know, learn about the industry before you jump in, you know, come sit through a couple of our webinars or come to our events and, and really learn about, you know, all the different asset classes that are underneath the cannabis umbrella because there are so many different ways to attack this. So one of the things that I like to say is, do you want to touch the plant or do you not? Now we're talking about marijuana side. And if you don't want to touch the plant, then there's a lot of ways you can do that. So for example, tech companies. So you've got, you know, Akerna, you've got Dutchie, you've got, you know, Weedmaps. You've got these companies that have gone public, and they can be public in the United States. Like Akerna is listed, I think, on NASDAQ, and it is a technology company. So it supports the industry with data and analytics, with CRM systems, with point-of-sale systems and various things like this. Metrc is another one. It is a government compliance program that's mandated by each state to track what's called, um, track and trace. It's called seed-to-sale tracking. And so, you know, these are really great opportunities to get into the industry without touching the plant, you know, that we call ancillary businesses. Um, you know, there's also things— I mentioned this earlier— like REITs. So there's a lot of mortgage REITs that are or have been established that allow you to lend against the commercial properties with cannabis tenants. And they actually generate above-market income because they can capture more economics being a cannabis-related, you know, property than not, because they're very sought after. I mean, a lot of municipalities will say, we have a cannabis zone in one area of our county. And so those properties that maybe were in industrial places from before are now commanding 5x, 10x the rents that they used to. And so these REITs are really another great place, I think, to go.
And is there a little bit of a risk premium built in there too, just because of the concerns around the industry?
I would say yes, there is. Less so for the non-plant touching, but if you're in a company like a Tilray or a Trulieve or some of the other ones that, Cura Leaf, for example, or some of the other MSOs that are listed on the Canadian exchange, I mean, there is that element of risk. It is still illegal federally, um, you know, in the United States.
So speaking of which, um, one of the best investments, uh, bar none over the past century has been tobacco stocks. Uh, that risk premium, even before, you know, we had current health concerns, there were thoughts that in polite society you didn't smoke or whatever. And, and so tobacco has been an incredible investment. There is buzz that Altria, and I guess Philip Morris as well internationally, could be quick to jump on this industry if we get federal legalization. What do you think of that?
Absolutely. And we already know that they're circling, that some are making bets like Constellation Brands. They came in early. I heard some buzz about Anheuser-Busch and some other things too. And for any, I would say, business in any of the CPG market spaces, right? Cannabis is gonna be part of that. Back to my CVS example, it doesn't even have to be a consumable product. It doesn't have to be a smokable product. You know, look at the beverage sector. Right now, beverages are being dominated by women. So women are turning to cannabis-infused beverages more so than men, and they're doing so because they want to get sort of off the alcohol a little bit. Uh, let's be honest, it's got calories in it. And, uh, you know, we've been, we've been using that as a vice for a while. You can get a very low THC-based beverage and have a similar effect to drinking like a glass or so of wine. And so, um, it's becoming very attractive for certain parts of our population. And so absolutely, you know, these companies are really looking at what their strategies are and how can they get in and when in in particular, right? Do they come in after federal legalization? Do they come in now? And to be honest with you, that's what our consulting group is working on day and night, and we are inundated with companies because of that reason. And because it's really, you know, you don't wanna make the wrong bet either. And do you build or buy? I mean, that's another big decision. So a lot of the brands that are in the space right now, you know, are entertaining, you know, conversations with some of these big brands already.
So one big brand that I believe you are backing is Martha Stewart. Not a name most people would associate with cannabis, but tell us about her CBD line.
Yeah, so Martha Stewart, so she, she came out of the cannabis closet. Actually, just in full disclosure, she's working, her original product line launch was with Canopy Growth, and they, she did a gummy line, which by the way is delicious, and she sells it here in the United States. And it's CBD only. So back to that, you know, non-psychoactive THC. So there's no THC in her products, but they are infused with CBD. And it's, it's one of the cannabinoids that is just such a— it has a lot of benefit for a lot of people. And so she launched that line, and now we are working with her on her, her skincare line. And for her, this was a real passion project. She has been looking at different formulations. She is keeping this company to herself. She She is not licensing this to another, and we just had her showcase on her company last week, and it was phenomenal. I mean, just the thought that is put into the skincare line. So CBD, um, as an ingredient is really a fantastic anti-inflammatory and antioxidant. And so if you think of that in combination with other things, and again, we haven't studied this very much, but we're starting to. It really has a lot of efficacy. And so, she's putting her name behind that and we're helping her raise money for that first round to launch the product.
So, she has not launched yet?
She has not. It looks like it's going to be out probably some mid to end of fourth quarter this year.
In time for Christmas, stocking stuffer.
Absolutely.
Martha Stewart. So, let's pivot a little bit. You referenced ESG, obviously very important. We're finally seeing some traction here. BlackRock, I believe, has 10x in ESG ETFs, what it did just 2 years ago. So after a lot of talk, I think the ESG is finally getting hold in this country. What, why is hemp especially such an ESG-friendly product? What are the various benefits?
So I think it, they should actually just call it hemp instead of ESG, to be honest with you, because it's a, I was, we were communicating with the Biden administration through one of our affinity groups called the Hemp Industry Association. And hemp product can address 10 of the 12 things on the climate change initiative. The UN list? Yeah. So if you look at, if you look at all of the different things that hemp can be utilized for, as I mentioned before, biodiesel, for example, you know, it can be a replacement for, you know, either ethanol-based or some of the other biodiesel materials. Hemp as a crop takes less water. It is pesticide resistant. It is antimicrobial. It is regenerative. So they actually used hemp to clean up Chernobyl, for example. So it cleans the soil as it is also sequestering from the atmosphere. And so from just a growing perspective, we could actually grow hemp on our planet and use that in carbon trading, right? It can be part of the carbon trading credit platform. And it's a global product. I mean, this, this plant can grow pretty much anywhere. I don't wanna say anywhere, but I mean, it's, it's got a very high endurance level. And so when you look at ways in which hemp can be sort of incorporated, I like, let me just give you one example, chicken feed. I know nobody likes to talk about chicken feed. I wanna talk about chicken feed. Um, so in August of 2020, paperwork was submitted to the FDA to approve the use of hemp seed to feed chickens. Why? Well, because you can grow hemp more economically. You don't have to provide chickens with omega-3 oils, which they require for their development because it's already included in the hemp product. Okay.
And you don't have to give them antibiotics because of those qualities you mentioned earlier.
Yes. Yes. Wow. And animal feed represents a $620 billion global market. So when you look at ESG and you say, okay, so how do we feed the planet? How do we sustain ourselves? How do we do all these things? And my, by the way, you can use the seed to feed the animal and then you can use the stock and the herd in all the other multiple ways. And so, um, one of the really cool things we're working on over at ArcView too is working with indigenous tribes. Um, you know, they have a lot of land here in the US and Canada, and it is absolutely perfect and prime for growing hemp. And so we're already on that path.
There's another kind of unrelated ESG initiative you've talked about, which is really interesting. Obviously there's a problem in this country with people being thrown in jail for low-level drug crimes.
Yes.
When they get out of jail, they're hard to employ. So the industry is trying to address that problem as well.
Yeah. So that's really the S part of ESG. And, you know, hemp, as I said, with the indigenous tribes, that's sort of our S part of that ESG.. But for the marijuana cannabis market, S is very important to this industry because if you think about how it really was birthed, developed here in the United States, I mean, these folks were taking massive risks. I mean, themselves, their families, their net worth. You know, people had everything taken from them. I had a friend of mine, she had one of the early dispensaries and they threatened to take her children away because she was in the cannabis market. And Child Protective Services came in. And so, you know, you think about how much sacrifice has been done early on. So as states become legal, part of their mandate is to have what's called a social equity program. But the problem is, Jack, and it's been this way forever, is who's going to pay for that? How is that going to get funded? Because if somebody has a record, they aren't really embraced by the capital markets. But one of the things we're doing at Arfu Capital is we're standing up a crowdfunding platform that will allow that to happen and with non-accredited investors. So, you know, I love this example. It's like I grew up in Detroit and Detroit, um, people are proud, you know, they, they love to, you know, um, visit their local stores run by a friend of theirs and so forth. Well, what if we open up that opportunity for them to invest in that local dispensary? And have pride of ownership.
And you could expand and be the Shinola of cannabis.
That's exactly right.
I like that. So we often hear when it comes to ESG that the main clients are not so interested, but the children are. Are you seeing that element here? Are you seeing interest from next-gen investors?
Oh, absolutely. And next-gen investors are really looking at that triple bottom line And I wanna be really clear here. I mean, we're not looking at ESG as a charity. You know, there's a lot of foundations out there. There's a lot of charitable organizations. We are looking at this as how do we make money in this industry as well as do good. And for us, that really hits home with this next generation because they're very thoughtful. They're very thoughtful in the products that they buy and really understanding, you know, the impact of those products. Um, I have two children. One is 24, one's 21, and they literally shop at, you know, secondhand stores as much as possible. You know, they recycle, they recycle everything that you can imagine, even probably things that probably shouldn't be recycled, but that's really, really important for them. And I think as an asset class and as, um, sort of stewards of, um, you know, their future money, which hopefully I'll have something to leave them. Is to really look at how do I invest that now so that we have that capabilities for them in the future.
Yeah, I've really noticed and heard a lot about that, that phenomenon. And my 17-year-old is the same as your children. She went way out of her way to, to go to an Asian-focused grocery store the other day just because of what's happened to that community. Before we get our actionable idea, one sort of brass tacks questions for investors, can you name a couple of the retail opportunities to get into this space, ETFs that focus on these areas?
So there's probably 7 or 8 ETFs right now, and for exchange-traded funds, I'm sure you all know that probably better than I do. But ETFs, I would say, are a great fit for cannabis investors, especially when you're kind of getting started and you want to be a cross-section and get really the market perspective versus a single stock. And what I also like about certain ETFs is, are they pure? So I would really look at a pure-play ETF versus one that might have, you know, alcohol or tobacco stocks kind of included in it, because to me that's really the focus on the cannabis space. So I really like Tim Seymour's. He's, he's a good friend of Arfu. He's been helping with our onstage and working with us and startup companies and everything. So he's been in the industry for a long time. And so he's a pure-play ETF. It's called Amplify, and he's had great returns, but he really knows the space. And so that would be just something else I'd say is really understand who's managing the ETF and are they active? Do they know the space? And is it a pure-play?
And is that associated with a big ETF producer or is that an independent?
Uh, that's an independent. So his is called Amplify. Gotcha.
All right. Um, so thanks for that. And, uh, we, unfortunately, uh, this has sped through, but we are at time. So I want to ask you in Barron's tradition to share an actionable idea with our audience.
So my actionable idea, well, first of all, is, uh, get started. If you haven't invested in cannabis, do it right now. Go find an ETF, a single company, do a little research, come visit one of our shows, our Our next show is Oklahoma. So we're actually doing a town hall in Oklahoma with the governor and talking about, you know, cannabis in Oklahoma.
You're not performing the show Oklahoma.
Actually, I might play the music in the background, or better yet, from Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. I like it when he does his Oklahoma routine. So yes, we're going to be going to Oklahoma, but I would just get started because a lot of people sit on the sidelines and they probably sit there a little too long. And what I would also say right now is an actionable is that the cannabis industry is extremely professional. It is not stoners, it is not pot smokers. I mean, they might, but really the companies that are making major strides in this industry right now are very professional and we're highly regulated. So that's something a lot of people don't realize too.
Thank you so much for this primer on a big and expanding industry. I also want to note that for anyone who thinks Barron's does not have a sense of humor, we are publishing this podcast on 4/20, as insiders will get. But Kim, thanks so much for sharing your expertise with our audience.
Thank you so much, Jack. What a pleasure. I appreciate it.
And thanks to everyone for listening to another episode of The Way Forward. We will be back next week when Steve Sandusky interviews Dan Held, Director of Business Development at Kraken. They'll take a deep dive into Bitcoin for advisors.
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