Martha Stewart’s pot partner talks marijuana money

Martha Stewart has partnered with pot company, Canopy Growth, to develop a new line of CBD-based products for animals and humans. Stewart will start as an adviser in the development of new products, according to Canopy Growth CEO Bruce Linton, who aims to get ahead of the federal legalization of marijuana.

“I can’t say exactly where Martha ends up, Linton told FOX Business’ Stuart Varney on Monday. “But our goal is to enter America when it’s not federally illegal.”

CBD stands for Cannabinoids which are the natural chemicals found in marijuana plants that are used medicinally to treat the symptoms associated with a wide-variety of disorders and diseases, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. The marijuana plant contains more than 100 cannabinoids, but the most popular and useful to medicine are one cannabidiol (CBD) and Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the substance primarily responsible for psychoactive effects.

Medicinal marijuana is currently legal in 33 states, while marijuana for recreational purposes is legal in 10 states, including Washington, D.C. However, pot is still banned at the federal level.

“What that looks like [is] it’s going to be state rights where they’ll probably say if it’s a party and medical in Colorado, that’s federally ok, but if the next state doesn’t want any that’s ok they don’t have that,” said Linton. “When that ruling comes through we would still be on side, we think, with every condition…. And we’d be in bigtime.”

CBD was recently passed in New York State under the new federal Farm Bill, which according to Linton, will allow the quantity of CBD used in products to be shown on ingredients labels.

“CBD is now governed by the FDA,” he said. “What it also means is that it’s slow at the FDA, but in New York State and I think you’ll see other states, they are saying if you want to put the amount of ingredients on the containers you can do that in New York State if you produce it here and it’s licensed here.”

However, making pot legal recreationally is a federal decision.

“If the feds don’t say it’s good—that means the banks don’t think it’s good,” he said.

Marijuana is currently classified as a Schedule 1 drug, according to the Drug Enforcement Agency, which equates it with ecstasy, heroine and LSD. And Linton said he hopes that getting ahead on the CBD side would open the financial floodgates once THC is legalized.

“When you stay on site federally it means you can stay on the New York Stock Exchange. [It] means you can have bank accounts with Bank of America. [It] means when I go to a regulated environment like Germany I can actually apply to get a license because I’m not breaking federal laws anywhere,” he said. “And so what we’ve said is stay on that side and push the rules rather than break them.”

According to Linton, Canopy Growth operates in more than a dozen countries, including Germany, where pot is federally approved.