Cannabis Stocks Staying Steady Through a Wild Market Week
In our latest Trade to Black podcast, presented by Flowhub, hosts Shadd Dales and Anthony Varrell run a three-segment show — Jushi Holdings (OTCQX: JUSHF) chief strategy officer Trent Woloveck and co-founder Jon Barack, the Vantage Standard segment with Vantage Hemp’s Harv Johal and Sean Carl, and FundCanna CEO Adam Stettner.
In segment one, Jon Barack makes his first appearance alongside Trent Woloveck to talk about what uplisting opportunities actually look like with cannabis rescheduling potentially arriving in the U.S. within weeks. Barack traces Jushi’s origins — from an early Organigram bet at the hedge fund he ran with CEO Jim Cacioppo to launching Jushi in 2018 — and offers a candid read on why institutional money has stayed on the sidelines. He points to investors burned getting in ahead of the failed SAFE Banking push in 2022, worsening custody issues, and thin liquidity that makes it nearly impossible to build or exit a meaningful position in anything but Trulieve. The pair get into how debt markets and M&A could evolve on the back of reform, and frame Cacioppo’s $1 million purchase of Jushi shares in late August as a direct statement of conviction to shareholders. They also dig into Jushi’s Virginia opportunity, where adult-use sales begin July 2027 against a medical market a fraction of the projected multibillion-dollar demand, and why the company is racing to build supply rather than deconsolidate for an uplisting.
For the Vantage Standard segment, Harv Johal and Sean Carl unpack the Advancing Botanical Drug Development Act of 2026, which would grant FDA-approved botanical drugs 12 years of market exclusivity. They explain why that runway matters for multi-compound plant medicines — the entourage effect, minor cannabinoids and terpenes all working across different pathways — and how modern genetics, extraction at scale, and AI are finally making the pharmaceutical pathway economically viable, tying it to Vantage’s GMP infrastructure and CBD API exports across 15 countries.
In the final segment, Adam Stettner breaks down where the hemp THC industry stands heading into December 11. Drawing on MJBizDaily reporting, he notes operators are already cutting production and planning in 30-day increments, since a 29-day extension doesn’t match how physical products get made — FundCanna’s own hemp funding is down 87% year over year. He and the hosts weigh the three realistic outcomes Congress could land on — a real regulatory framework, another extension, or the ban taking effect as written — and what each would mean for licensed cannabis operators as the intoxicating hemp category unwinds ahead of them.
Give it a listen.
