Five years after the legalization of cannabis in Canada, Olympic gold medalist and cannabis entrepreneur Ross Rebagliati says government restrictions and stigma are hurting the growth of the industry.Men's snowboarding gold medallist Ross Rebagliati shows his delight at the 1998 Winter Olympic in Nagano, Japan. He was later stripped of the medal because traces of cannabis were found in his system. Upon appeal, he got the medal back. The experience led him to pursue a career in cannabis.
And while he took on other jobs to fund his dreams, he kept at it, founding medical marijuana dispensary Ross' Gold in 2013. People are having a hard time paying their employees and affording the taxes and the whole nine yards when it comes to starting a cannabis company and getting your brand out there. There's been a bunch of restrictions that are holding us back as far as marketing. And the tools that you need to get brand traction just aren't there.
So we're looking at what we can do with the allowable amount of THC that's in the edibles and looking also toward things like consumption lounges where people can go and order a coffee, use cannabis, maybe get an edible or a cannabis drink, and congregate and be social … and really bring cannabis out of the shadows so people can get out of the house and enjoy their friends and be social.
On the other side of things, you have banking, where banks are reluctant to open accounts for cannabis companies. Insurance companies are kind of in the same boat where it's tough to get the right insurance for your business … There's a bunch of things right there that are really blocking the industry from thriving and taking out of the hands of the black market.