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High hopes for Venosta cannabis venture
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by Anastasia Philopoulos on October 28, 2015
GrowPros is proposing a 50,000 square foot medical marijuana facility on 190 acres of land in Venosta. The image above is a sketch of what that might look like. Image courtesy Ryan Brown

GrowPros is proposing a 50,000 square foot medical marijuana facility on 190 acres of land in Venosta. The image above is a sketch of what that might look like. Image courtesy Ryan Brown

Ryan Brown says he’s cautiously optimistic.

Now that Canada has voted in a Liberal majority, his plans for a 50,000 square foot medical marijuana facility located on 190 acres of land in Venosta seem one step closer.

“Now that we have a government in place that wants to further the legalization movement…I think that bodes very well for my project,” Brown said.

It’s no secret the Liberal platform includes plans to legalize and regulate recreational marijuana. In fact, within 24 hours of the party’s majority win on Oct. 19, pot stocks soared as publicly traded medical cannabis companies like Canopy Growth Corp. became the new ‘must-have’ stock. Eventually, prices dropped but it clearly demonstrated investors were high on all the green dollar signs they saw in the industry’s future.

Brown is the CEO and President of GrowPros, a publicly traded diversified cannabis investment firm, which is engaged in joint ventures with startup companies in the legal cannabis sector.

The majority win was definitely a best-case scenario for GrowPros, but Brown is not completely taken in by all the market fuss.

“For me to get all excited and start saying money is going to start falling from the heavens would be misleading,” Brown said. “I’m definitely optimistic and obviously paying very close attention to what’s happening and what form this is going to take.”

A resident of Chelsea, Brown does have high hopes the new government will have a positive effect on the backlog of medicinal grower applications. GrowPros applied for a license with Health Canada over a year ago and hasn’t had much communication from the government agency since. The license is the only missing part – Brown has land lined up in Venosta, along with support from Low’s Mayor and residents as well as an investor ready to pour $5 to $6 million into the business.

Even the Pontiac’s new Liberal MP Will Amos is on board with the project, which is poised to create 60 to 100 new jobs.

“The use of medical marijuana has been accepted for some time in Canada,” Amos told the Low Down. “Any business that opens the door to good, sustainable jobs and that offers the opportunity for our region to grow in a responsible way, I’m in support of.”

Outside the Pontiac, if the government goes forward with legalizing recreational marijuana, Brown thinks they should model it after the system in Colorado, which legalized pot in 2012. But the GrowPros founder says the most exciting part of possibly changing the legislation is how it will affect research, especially on pot’s medicinal uses.

“Hopefully some of the restrictions are going to be eased on research and scientists are going to be given a little more free reign and little more ability to further the science…up to this point pure science has been missing.”

And while the cannabis industry is poised to do well under the Liberals, Brown warns people to invest cautiously. Treat it as a high-risk investment, he says, as it is a start-up industry with mostly start-up companies.

“It would be like any other emerging industry where it’s buyer beware,” Brown said. “But if you play your cards right, you could find yourself sitting on some substantial returns.”