Damian Marley, son of famed musician and Rastafarian Bob Marley, will continue his father’s legacy in the cannabis business. A group of investors and himself have acquired a majority share of High Times magazine. Marley credits High Times magazine for helping him spot crop ruining male plants in his early days of cannabis cultivation. Now he will help usher High Times to an exploding audience, as one-fifth of the country lives in states with legal cannabis, The New York Times reports.
The 60% share is valued at $70 million and was acquired for $42 million, Mashable reports. Leading the charge was venture capitalist Adam Levine, head of Oreva Capital teamed with “Marley’s newly-public company Stony Hill, Ean Seeb, the founder of Denver Relief Consulting, a Colorado dispensary, and 17 other partners in the cannabis, real estate, and technology space,” per Business Insider.
Originally founded by Tom Forçade in 1947. Forçade used “dope money” to fund the first High Times magazine, acquired by smuggling weed from Californian to Florida, according to LA Weekly. Levin, Marley and their partners aim to make High Times a force in the digital space, with more journalism based content on the cannabis industry, according to the New York Times.
“High Times, to me, is the Coca-Cola of the industry, and obviously, cannabis is one of the fastest growing industries today,” Levine told Business Insider.
Levine will take over as CEO of the newly minted High Times Holding Company. High Times’s audience is evolving past typical stoners, and Levine wants to grow the brand with the cannabis industry while retaining reliability, Business Insider reports.
“Buying High Times was a unique opportunity,” Levin told Business Insider, “and it’s a unique opportunity at the right time in history.”
The cannabis industry continues growing exponentially. By 2020, the cannabis industry is projected to create 250,000 jobs, more than manufacturing, utilities or government jobs, per reports from New Frontier Data and Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Levin will have plenty of hard hitting stories for his staff to cover as cannabis continues its push for complete legalization.
