The cannabis industry has been built on people pushing the envelope, and finding ways to make their business run despite the stringent rules and regulations. Alaska is no different than many other states, however it does have some natural restrictions. With Alaska being a huge state many places are reachable only by boat or plane. But federal regulations prohibit the transportation of a controlled substance by both air and water making it hard to get product to some parts of Alaska. We meet with Andrew Morris of Great Northern Cannabis Company who chats with us about production, and transportation within Alaska.
Video Transcription
Harry Brelsford
Hey everybody, I’m with Andrew Morris from the Great Northern State of Alaska who runs The Great Northern Cannabis Company. How’re you doing err?
Andrew Morris
I’m doing well. Thank you.
Harry Brelsford
Good, good. Well, Alaska is always got good curbside appeal, you can’t go to a cable channel without back to back to back Alaska shows. So this, this will be a good addition to the coverage we have. Tell us a little bit about your background first, then the Great Northern Cannabis Company.
Andrew Morris
Right on I began my career in technology. I, my first job was actually with next computer in Silicon Valley. So that was startup that Steve Jobs created when he left Apple. And eventually that startup was acquired. And that’s what became the core technology in the iPhone and the current version of the Mac operating system. I continue to do technology consulting for most of my career and started a mobile apps company. First first year after the App Store went live. And actually my company had the number one app on the App Store, the first Christmas of 2009 when the app store was up,
Harry Brelsford
wow.
Andrew Morris
we got into staffing with Apple and had a bunch of we had 14 engineers actually with Apple doing internal engineering. And at one point, they did a change of direction and decided they wanted to cut the contract. And that kind of left me in an existential crisis. And I looked around to see, well, what can I do? And despite having no background with cannabis, Alaska just legalized, and I researched, it more determined it to be an ethical investment. And because I’d always had aspirations of owning a winery, and this didn’t seem much different. No, I, I invested in the cannabis industry and became a cannabis entrepreneur.
Harry Brelsford
All right, so what’s your business model? Great Northern Cannabis Company.
Andrew Morris
We’re, we’re vertically integrated right now are several are founders were experience experienced cultivators, the time legalization, and so our, our initial foray into this was a cultivation operation. And then that extended into retail next, and then later, we’ve expanded into manufacturing and we currently have two cultivation facilities that are operational one that’s been in the process of being stood up three retail stores, all within the anchorage city limits, and then two manufacturing facilities.
Harry Brelsford
Yeah, I was gonna say that’s a that’s a real company. What aside from broader industry challenges that are kind of well documented, I mean, I attract some indexes and the stock prices are in the tank in this sector. So aside from sort of the broad trends, what are some unique challenges in Alaska?
Andrew Morris
Good question. Alaska. As you know, having been here Alaska is a huge state and we don’t have road system everywhere. So one of the really unique challenges that we face is transportation a product so it’s Alaska has both you know, marine highway system as well as a lot of air travel and for us to get product around the state it’s it’s kind of a mixture of all you know, road system delivery fly flying product in and then potentially carrying product on the Alaska marine highway system.
Harry Brelsford
Yeah, well, let’s talk about that. So if you know Alaska Airlines longtime MVP gold love them. It’s my understanding in nor have I done it, but it’s my understanding. I cannot carry weed on that planes. Right. I can’t get on the flight in the plane in Seattle and go to Austin, Texas with gummy bears. And I obviously state lines, but I’m assuming it’s also because they’re federally chartered. I might be wrong than that. So can you hire Alaska Airlines in state to fly weed up to Barrow? No,
Andrew Morris
it’s the regular the regulations are complicated. And it is my understanding that the airline cannot knowingly transport cannabis even in state but
Harry Brelsford
private pilot’s Good. Well,
Andrew Morris
they can. And basically, as long as you don’t explicitly make the airline aware that you’re transporting cannabis, that’s not a problem.
Harry Brelsford
Yeah, yeah. No. I was just curious, you know, cuz I’m not as strong on the regulatory side. Um, what’s next? For your company? Are you thinking continued growth other cities? acquisitions?
Andrew Morris
Well, yeah, that’s That’s a complicated question. We’re probably most focused on continuing to expand retail presence, Anchorage, we have a very active wholesale business, and we’re trying to get our products distributed statewide. And Alaska is kind of in the midst of its own existential crisis, because most of the economy is resource extraction in the petroleum industry. And so there’s there’s been kind of an ongoing recession and a lot of soul searching about what is Alaska’s future look like? So the, the economic tapestry with a pandemic and the Alaskan recession and our our industry in particular is is tricky, complicated.
Harry Brelsford
Unclear, yeah, absolutely. Well continue. Good luck. And we’ll circle back to you, you know, sometime later this year and see, see how you’re doing but thank you for being on our podcast. Thank you.
