14 min
Why Kevin O'Leary Won't Invest In Cannabis The RazReport
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- Investing
This is a replay of Jason Raznick's interview with Kevin O'Leary at the Benzinga Pyschedelics Conference.
Jason and Kevin talk about:
Psychedelics as an investment opportunityWhy Cannabis Industry Attracts 'Zero' Institutional DollarsThe Most Successful investmentsHosts:
Jason Raznick
Twitter: https://twitter.com/jasonraznick
Sign Up to Benzinga Pro today to receive most exclusive interviews, news and stock picks fast!
https://pro.benzinga.com/
Click here for more episodes of The RazReport.
Disclaimer: All of the information, material, and/or content contained in this program is for informational purposes only. Investing in stocks, options, and futures is risky and not suitable for all investors. Please consult your own independent financial adviser before making any investment decisions.
Transcript:
BZ: I want to introduce the number-one shark Mr. Wonderful. Kevin O'Leary. When did you first get into the psychedelic space?
3 years ago. I was here and a young guy came to me and said, look, I want you to give me a few million bucks to invest in psychedelics.
I said, are you out of your mind? That's an illegal substance.He said, no, I want to do FDA trials with it. And it was a very fascinating conversation because at that time everybody was trying to raise money for Bitcoin. It was very crypto oriented and I really got interested and I put a couple of guys with him to do some diligence.
And Alex one of the guys that works with me, Alex rarely gets excited about anything. He's seen everything. He's just came back and said listen we got to own this thing. The potential here is huge. And he was right. The addressable markets are in the hundreds of billions of dollars.
BZ: And so where is Mindmed right now?
K: When I index a sector, I try and mitigate my risk based on trials. In biotech medicine, the outcomes are unknown. So it's very binary. You can chase a molecule for 10 years and you in stage three lose.
And so you have to have multiple trials. I'm overweight MindMed, but I also have exposure to Compass. They're all doing things slightly differently, but they're all in stage two. And The minute one of them gets to stage three on any medicine, you're going to lift all the tides, so you want multiple exposure.
BZ: How did you decide to get into psychedelics?
K:How many times in your investment life, do you get to position yourself in a brand new sector?
A completely brand new sector? Never is the answer. You've once in a lifetime, if you're lucky. And this sector, and I'm not talking about cannabis, right? And I'm talking about psychedelics as medicine, FDA approved trials, non recreational use. Remember what happened back in the early sixties, the whole movement overdosing LSD caused this to be elevated to a narcotic and put aside, even though there's lots of promising evidence that micro-dosing, it could have some good natural attributes.
In terms of helping people with addiction, opioid addiction, alcoholism, anxiety, all of these different massive markets. It was ignored. And then we've tried all these other drugs like pumping kids full Ritalin and all this garbage. And we haven't explored this opportunity. And I think now we are.
And so for me, it's okay. There's been nothing new for 30 years in mental health. Other than just drugging people with more drugs. This looks more interesting. Let's put some dollars aside for this.
BZ: Are you invested in cannabis companies?
K: Let's talk about what cannabis is. Cannabis is a narcotic and that puts it in a difficult place for institutional investors.
If you have two states beside each other, one has legalized cannabis and the other hasn't and you are a shareholder. Somebody takes it across the border. and now you have aided and embedded transferring a narcotic that's punished by about 23 years in jail. I'm not that interested in that outcome for me.
Why don't we just get it off the narcotic list?
And so I represent institutional capital. We're always trying to
This is a replay of Jason Raznick's interview with Kevin O'Leary at the Benzinga Pyschedelics Conference.
Jason and Kevin talk about:
Psychedelics as an investment opportunityWhy Cannabis Industry Attracts 'Zero' Institutional DollarsThe Most Successful investmentsHosts:
Jason Raznick
Twitter: https://twitter.com/jasonraznick
Sign Up to Benzinga Pro today to receive most exclusive interviews, news and stock picks fast!
https://pro.benzinga.com/
Click here for more episodes of The RazReport.
Disclaimer: All of the information, material, and/or content contained in this program is for informational purposes only. Investing in stocks, options, and futures is risky and not suitable for all investors. Please consult your own independent financial adviser before making any investment decisions.
Transcript:
BZ: I want to introduce the number-one shark Mr. Wonderful. Kevin O'Leary. When did you first get into the psychedelic space?
3 years ago. I was here and a young guy came to me and said, look, I want you to give me a few million bucks to invest in psychedelics.
I said, are you out of your mind? That's an illegal substance.He said, no, I want to do FDA trials with it. And it was a very fascinating conversation because at that time everybody was trying to raise money for Bitcoin. It was very crypto oriented and I really got interested and I put a couple of guys with him to do some diligence.
And Alex one of the guys that works with me, Alex rarely gets excited about anything. He's seen everything. He's just came back and said listen we got to own this thing. The potential here is huge. And he was right. The addressable markets are in the hundreds of billions of dollars.
BZ: And so where is Mindmed right now?
K: When I index a sector, I try and mitigate my risk based on trials. In biotech medicine, the outcomes are unknown. So it's very binary. You can chase a molecule for 10 years and you in stage three lose.
And so you have to have multiple trials. I'm overweight MindMed, but I also have exposure to Compass. They're all doing things slightly differently, but they're all in stage two. And The minute one of them gets to stage three on any medicine, you're going to lift all the tides, so you want multiple exposure.
BZ: How did you decide to get into psychedelics?
K:How many times in your investment life, do you get to position yourself in a brand new sector?
A completely brand new sector? Never is the answer. You've once in a lifetime, if you're lucky. And this sector, and I'm not talking about cannabis, right? And I'm talking about psychedelics as medicine, FDA approved trials, non recreational use. Remember what happened back in the early sixties, the whole movement overdosing LSD caused this to be elevated to a narcotic and put aside, even though there's lots of promising evidence that micro-dosing, it could have some good natural attributes.
In terms of helping people with addiction, opioid addiction, alcoholism, anxiety, all of these different massive markets. It was ignored. And then we've tried all these other drugs like pumping kids full Ritalin and all this garbage. And we haven't explored this opportunity. And I think now we are.
And so for me, it's okay. There's been nothing new for 30 years in mental health. Other than just drugging people with more drugs. This looks more interesting. Let's put some dollars aside for this.
BZ: Are you invested in cannabis companies?
K: Let's talk about what cannabis is. Cannabis is a narcotic and that puts it in a difficult place for institutional investors.
If you have two states beside each other, one has legalized cannabis and the other hasn't and you are a shareholder. Somebody takes it across the border. and now you have aided and embedded transferring a narcotic that's punished by about 23 years in jail. I'm not that interested in that outcome for me.
Why don't we just get it off the narcotic list?
And so I represent institutional capital. We're always trying to
14 min