Podcast Episode: Chasing Cannabis Magic with Jim Belushi

Chris Walsh

Hi and welcome to “Seed to CEO,” the podcast about making your way in the cannabis business. I’m Chris Walsh, the CEO of MJBiz.

In this episode, I’m speaking with Jim Belushi. Yes, THE Jim Belushi, the actor and singer who is now the head of a 93-acre cannabis farm in Southern Oregon.

Jim isn’t just another celebrity jumping on the bandwagon by simply serving as the face of a company. He’s actually running Belushi’s Farm and is heavily involved in all aspects of the business. We’re going to explore what Jim has learned about starting an operating a cannabis grow, how his signature strain goes back to the 1970s and Saturday Night Live, and about a mistake he made that involved losing $300,000 worth of cannabis.

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Chris Walsh

Welcome back to Seed to CEO. Thanks for tuning in.

I’m here now with Jim Belushi of Belushi’s Farm. Jim bought 93 acres of farmland near Medford in southern Oregon in 2015 because he fell in love with the area, but he wasn’t quite sure what to do with it. Then Oregon legalized recreational marijuana, and he figured why not grow cannabis.

We’re going to talk about how he approached starting this business, made the transition from acting into the marijuana industry and what he’s learned along the way.

Jim, thanks for joining us today.

Jim Belushi

Oh, thank you, Chris. It’s good to be here. Thanks for having me.

Chris Walsh

I attended a cannabis investor event – Green Table, I believe – at your estate in Los Angeles a few years ago. Very nice place, by the way. How often do you get down there these days?

Jim Belushi

I am on the road all the time. That’s a tough question. Last year, I was here probably from, I don’t know, March, October – up here in Oregon.

You know, I split my time between Los Angeles, Oregon and on the road with all the different things that I do.

Chris Walsh

Well, tell us about your operation. What you got going there on the farm?

Jim Belushi

Well, right now, you know, I have 93 acres. I originally bought 13 acres and then I bought the farm next to me, 80 acres. And we’re on, right on the Rogue River.

You know legally in Oregon, you can have a 40,000-square-foot canopy for outdoor and a 10,000-foot canopy for indoor. And right now, I’m in the process converting all my outdoor into the greenhouse, so it’s considered indoors. So I have about 10,000-square-feet canopy of cannabis right now.

Chris Walsh

10,000 square feet and you’re converting from outdoor to greenhouses?

Jim Belushi

Right. Before we had 20,000 outdoor. And then last year, we had half and half.

And now we are in the process of putting two terrific Gro-Tech greenhouses, fully automated, up right now. I mean, it’s in construction right now I’m here a lot with the contractor. Let’s put it that way.

Chris Walsh

Well, I like I’d like to come back on that and talk about why you’re moving from outdoors to greenhouses and kind of the costs involved. But before we do that, can I ask you, how many plants are you growing? How many strains?

Jim Belushi

Well, we are growing about … Each greenhouse has about 200 plants, produces about 100 to 150 pounds per cycle. Depending on the cycle, the winter cycles are a little leaner because the boost in the help of the sun obviously is less and we have to augment it with some lighting.

We’re going to change from a Gavita light to a Fohse LED light, which cost-wise the equipment is relatively the same. The electrical use is a little less, but the light penetration is about a 30% increase, which increases our yield about 20-25%.

I did not want to do LEDS because I still think they were kind of hammering out the weaknesses. And I think Fohse has really done a great job.

Now we only use that LED to augment during the cycles where the sun is not up for more than 12 hours. So in a winter, we’ll probably use more of the electrical, but in the summer we don’t use hardly any because we got the natural Father Sun just inspiring these girls. I mean, they are so beautiful.

Chris Walsh

Many of these girls you’ve named, is that correct?

Jim Belushi

Oh, I name all my girls.

Chris Walsh

what are some of the names?

Jim Belushi

Oh, wow, there’s all of them. Clarissa, Clarence, Heather, Jenny, Jamie, Jacqueline. You know, some are like models, that real long and lean. You know, some are like just regular great people and just beautiful.

And you know, they all have their personalities. You know each strain is picky. I mean, my Captain Jack strain, she is, she’s tough. She’s a tough girl.

Chris Walsh

Well, let’s come back to Captain Jack, the Captain Jack strain in a little bit because I think that’s a key part of your story.

Now you’re also in several other states. Is that correct?

Jim Belushi

We just released in Oregon with Redbird. We’re releasing the same, same slate. We released in Colorado with The Green Solution. And we have one contract signed, well, we got a few more to go for California. Massachusetts. We’re in deep discussions with Maryland and they have 10 other states. I’m sorry, six other states. We’re developing an edible line with Bhang Chocolate. We are developing an edible line with Glazed Chocolates [ed. note: Glazed Edibles] in Oklahoma. We are just moving along here, Chris.

Chris Walsh

That’s fun. Fantastic to hear.

I want to back up a little bit to when you first started. In the first episode of your Discovery Channel show, “Growing Belushi,” you said with a very audible sigh, that this whole endeavor required a big investment but that you didn’t do it for the money. And a little bit later, Dan Ackroyd then says you’re not out to make a quick buck like other growers.

So that begs the question, what convinced you to make this transition? I mean, you’re running a cannabis farm now and getting your hands dirty and learning all about the plant. This appears to be the polar opposite of the actor lifestyle and way of making money.

Jim Belushi

Well, you know, I got my comedy bucks. “According to Jim” did very well for me. I’ve had a very busy career.

You know, it’s never been about the money. Even acting was never about the money. It was about the magic. You know, your passion is magic. And I always consider myself a magic chaser.

So I chased the magic in football and chased it in theater in high school. I chased the magic and music. I got a comedy improvisational group called Jim Belushi and the Board of Comedy. I do the Blues Brothers. The Sacred Hearts band, I do. I act. And they all have magic, which means … when you’re in a moment of magic, you are solely present in your body, in the universe in that moment. Like when you get a laugh on the stage, you can’t describe to people what that feeling is. What it is, is pure presence with community.

So I’m a magic chaser. And cannabis has a lot of magic in it.

Chris Walsh

When did you see the magic in cannabis and make the decision to get involved?

Jim Belushi

Well, first of all, you know, it was an accident. It was recreational. I have a farm. And I knew Danny, and Danny knew Captain Jack. And I knew somebody else, Jeffrey Iverson was a great geneticist here in Oregon. And so I just grew a little medical grow with them and just, you know, kind of as a hobby, fun. You know, then it kind of turned into like, well, this is a lot of money. I mean, you can have magic and break even.

Chris Walsh

That’s the goal, I’m sure.

Jim Belushi

And then it just started steamrolling from there. More people you talked to, you know … I worked with Medicine Man for a while.

I just … it has been a full education. I mean, I believe I’m in my master’s program right now. I’ve gone through freshman, sophomore, junior, senior year, made all the mistakes, spent all the money.

But the moment that it turned was when we were selling some cannabis to these dispensaries. I wanted to go. I grow it, I cure it. I’m involved with the trimming – I’m not a good trimmer, but I’m quality control in that area. And I want to sell and I want to meet the dispensary owners and the customers. So Chris and I literally jumped into his Ford Explorer. And we go to all the dispensaries.

Chris Walsh

Can you explain to our listeners who Chris is?

Jim Belushi

Chris is my cousin. He’s on the show, “Growing Belushi,” with me. If anybody’s seen it, it’s very funny.

Chris Walsh

And he’s your cousin? And you brought him on to help with this business?

Jim Belushi

Well, he came to visit. And he can see, business-wise, I wasn’t very organized. And he ran 13 restaurants for 30 years in Florida. And he’s quite a numbers guy and a business guy. And so he’s been here ever since. He’s been here four years now.

Chris Walsh

He just never left.

Jim Belushi

Anyway. So what happened, Chris, was I went to a dispensary on the coast in Coos Bay. And there was a long line of people. And, you know, as an actor, I was signing autographs, taking photos and showing my cannabis. And I kind of run through the crowd and touch them on the shoulder and say, “Hi, I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

And one gentlemen, long stringy hair, really blue eyes, kind of a scruffy beard, very thin. He looked at me and I was like, “Are you all right man?”

And he said, “I was a medic in Iraq for … for a while. And I saw things that happened to the human body that nobody should ever witness. I have what the veterans’ hospital says … triple PTSD. I got a wife and I got kids. I can’t talk to them. I can’t sleep. They gave me a big vial of 600 oxycontin. I tried it. It didn’t feel right. And I started using cannabis.”

And he said, “Your Black Diamond OG is the only strain that I’ve found that where I can talk to my wife, talk to my children. Sleep.”

And he started tearing up. And he hugged me.

I said, “Man, I didn’t make this.” And he said, “No, but you’re a steward.”

After that personal appearance was a paradigm shift for me. Then from then on, in every dispensary, I would see the people that were using it as medicine: veterans with wheelchairs and had spasms that the cannabis stopped the spasm. A woman had, I dunno, it was like 112 bones broken in her body from a car accident, uses cannabis, get off all the opiates sort of thing.

And you know, if my brother John were a pothead, he’d be alive today. That’s where the magic is. And I’m chasing the magic, and I’m chasing the medicine.

Chris Walsh

I’ve said this in other episodes of this podcast, but it’s worth repeating. I’m constantly struck by how many people have these personal stories about a moment in time that led their way to cannabis. And there’s a lot of similar experiences out there.

Jim Belushi

And I think that’s what makes this industry a lot different from a lot of other things that you do. I mean, the TV show “Growing Belushi,” the title was a bit comic, because I’m growing cannabis. What is this Hollywood guy doing growing cannabis? That was kind of the premise.

But the underlying theme was that I’m growing as a person with my relationship with this plant and this farm. I’ve changed. I’m not the same person I was four or five years ago.

The number one fear in life is death; the number two fear in life, the collapse of family. Addiction, a death in a family, divorce, a loss of business, you know, incurable diseases or very disturbing diseases – all these traumas really contribute to a collapse of a family, which is the largest trauma for someone. And I believe cannabis is a way of helping families that a) have collapsed, or b) keeping it from collapsing.

Like the gentleman, the veteran that wasn’t talking to his wife or his children. That family was on the verge of collapsing, but he got medicine and medicine that doesn’t harm him. It’s not alcohol. It’s not opiates. It’s just a beautiful plant. And it’s gonna help heal that family and help heal this gentleman.

Chris Walsh

It sounds like your desire to actually go out there and feel what this is all about, go to the dispensaries, meet the patients and customers using it, really gave you a new appreciation for this industry and a new outlook on it.

You said you’re growing cannabis, you’re growing as a person. And you’re also growing as a businessman. Let’s go back to your comment about this requiring a big investment. How big are we talking about? How much money have you sunk into this? And I think that would help listeners understand kind of some of the costs involved.

Jim Belushi

Well, you know, Danny Aykroyd … You know, I am the CFO of the Blues Brothers Band. We get paid quite a bit of money for corporate events. So I’m running the band, I run all the costs, I run the payroll, I run the travel. And I’m the CFO, but Danny rephrased it: not the chief financial officer, but the CHEAP financial officer. Because I’m very cheap. Not cheap as a person. I’m very generous, but I’m very frugal, business-minded, margin-minded.

But I don’t know, I’ve probably put in $3 million.

Chris Walsh

I like that, cheap financial officer.

Jim Belushi

Right?

Chris Walsh

I’ll have to have to steal that from you.

And what have you spent most of that money on?

Jim Belushi

I think I spend most of the money on labor, which is great, because we hire people in this community. And it helps the community. You know, $1, $1 that you pay somebody. It takes seven times before that dollar leaves a community.

Chris Walsh

What kind of positions do you employ?

Jim Belushi

Well, we got trimmers, joint rollers. We got a grounds crew. We got the, the METRC girl, we got the secretary. We got our head grower and his crew.

I also, now as a business, I have a website manager. I have a public relations girl. She’s terrific, Zoe. I got the CEO.

Now I just kind of took on a branding company. It’s good. Chris and I have been doing it all ourselves. We did the branding. We came up with the designs. We pick the strains – we pick them out according to, you know, for me the terpene values. ‘Cause I believe the entourage effect is a much better experience than just THC. You buy a bottle of wine. It’s only 14% alcohol, the rest of its terpenes. But you want cannabis that’s the highest you can get in THC? It’s like, you gotta chill out and check it out.

Chris Walsh

Well, let’s talk about what steps you took as you started to get into this industry. I assume you hadn’t grown cannabis before. Well, how did you learn about this plant? How did you learn about the business and what it takes to be successful?

Jim Belushi

Well, I learned a lot from Jeffrey Iverson. Oh, he’s been a grower for many, many years and he has a mentor in San Francisco that is a professor of genetics. And of course, Captain Jack who’s been growing since the 60s. He was involved in, you know, the whole Humboldt County thing are in early 70s. These are old time growers, you know…

Chris Walsh

And these are these are who you leaned on to determine what …

Jim Belushi

Yeah, when I first started with the 48 plants. That was the “growing learning.” And then Medicine Man, Andy Williams, was one of the first men that kinda was teaching me how to expand.

But I gotta tell you, the biggest mentor that I’ve met is Steve DeAngelo out of California. I mean, he really is the father of cannabis. And he’s got, his heart is so clear. His agenda is so clear. And he’s helped me quite a bit.

Chris Walsh

So you, you relied on people with growing experience for many years. And you relied on people in the industry as well.

Jim Belushi

Yes. Then there’s another group right now that I’m working with, that’s helping me redo my farm. Grow Generation. A guy, Jeremy, at Grow Generation is one of the wisest guys I’ve met. He goes, “You’re a wonderful boutique farm. But we’re gonna make you the cutting technology of what’s going on in the industry.”

He’s the one that brought in the Fohse lights, the Gro-Tech greenhouses. I mean, we got Arden dehumidifiers that have got a variable engine, so it’ll slow down and still keep it going. And then go back up, which you don’t have any break, which makes no difference to the ladies. They like to be comfortable.

This whole change that I’m doing, moving to better technology, in growing beautiful plants with the power of the outdoor Father Sun should be documented on film. And by the way, I’m filming it.

Chris Walsh

That’ll be exciting to watch.

Were you always going to move, since you started, to more and better technology? Or did you start with a different mentality of ‘I’m going to be a salt of the earth farmer and avoid technology?”

Jim Belushi

You know what? I’m an improvisational actor. I make shit up as I go. I get new information and I react to it.

I’m just tired of being Elmer Fudd and Bill Murray in Caddyshack, chasing gophers, squirrels, aphids, russet mites, powdery mildew, MOLD. Last year, I lost 300 pounds to mold.

Chris Walsh

300 pounds?

Jim Belushi

Yes! I lost a second cycle because of weather. And I went, “That’s enough. I’m done.”

I still want the natural organic way: flavoring, growing, spirituality. The Father Sun, natural nutrients, good soil, water that comes directly from the Rogue River, which is almost a perfect Ph. I love all that. So how am I going to do that? I’m going to get a better greenhouse. So I can still have that power of the sun. And we can augment it with light.

But we have a controlled environment to keep those bugs, squirrels, deer – DEER, those cute little things? Bambi is a bitch. She likes my plants.

Chris Walsh

I’m sure she does.

Jim Belushi

I mean it just drove me crazy.

Chris Walsh

So that, this was a big reason why you’re moving from the portion that was outdoors into greenhouses?

Jim Belushi

Yeah. I mean, I’m running around this farm with like, uh, jumping out of the car, chasing squirrels. And like my cousin Chris is like, “Jim, Jim, come on man. This is not Caddyshack.”

I gotta calm down. I’m like so protective over these girls. You know, I mean, I play music for ‘em. I play … in the morning, I play baby-making music you know like Al Green …

Chris Walsh

Baby-making music?

Jim Belushi

Yeah, you know, really sexy kind of cool stuff. You know, Curtis Mayfield. And then the afternoon, I start playing some reggae, some blues and then some funk. And at night I play a little Bill Evans jazz, you know, the Bill Evans trio.

I love these girls. I’m really protective of Heather, Clarissa and all my girls.

Chris Walsh

You have gotten really involved in this business. That’s great to see. A lot of times celebrities or well-known names are getting involved in cannabis, but they’re doing it through being a spokesperson for a company basically.

Jim Belushi

No, no, no man. I keep the soil at 64 degrees in order for the micronutrients to jump onto those roots. They absorb better. Oh no, no, no, I’m a grower. I’m a cultivator.

But all those men and women are beautiful also, because Willie and Snoop, you know, they laid down on the barbed wire for the rest of us. They took the risk that Sessions could arrest them and take all their wealth.

Chris Walsh

Oh, yeah, they laid the groundwork for all of us.

Jim Belushi

They may not be growing it, but they believe in it.

Chris Walsh

You at one point – and I don’t know if this is still the case – you were basing a big part of your business model on the Captain Jack strain. Is that still the case? And why were you, or are you also now, you going that route?

Jim Belushi

Well, Captain Jack is a land-raised strain. The thing about land-raised strains, well it’s such a lovely experience, this, this strain. It’s simultaneously creative, fun, yet, you can sleep beautifully on it.

The problem with the land-raised strains that we had in the 70s that – by the way, we still have the same strain. We never, never hybrid it – is the THC levels were never that high back in the 70s. So the Captain Jack strain has got like a 16%, 17% THC, but it’s got 5.2% and one of the plant’s has got 5.5% terpenes. And 72% of that is myrcene. It is a beautiful old-school high.

Chris Walsh

It’s from Afghanistan, correct?

Jim Belushi

He went there in ‘71 and ‘72 and worked with the villagers outside of Mazar-i-Sharif.

Chris Walsh

That’s, this is Jack?

Jim Belushi

Yeah. And the villagers liked him. And so the second year, they gave him a handkerchief full of seeds. And he’s been growing from seed to flower every year.

But you know, like I said earlier, the dispensaries want higher THC. And I go, well, this is really special. This is the stuff that Dan Aykroyd and my brother smoked when they were writing on Saturday Night Live.

Chris Walsh

Jack was supplying the cast back then right?

Jim Belushi

Jack was the dealer. Well, Jack doesn’t like that word. He was the “friend” of many of the writers and actors of Saturday Night Live. And that stuff was so pungent because of the terpenes that the halls at Rockefeller Center smelled like that weed. So Jack was known as the smell of SNL.

Chris Walsh

So Captain Jack, you, you hooked up with him again, as you started this business and said, “Hey, you’ve got something special here. Let’s make this a cornerstone of our approach and our differentiator?”

Jim Belushi

Yes, it’s got a great story. It’s a great brand. It’s authentic. It’s got beautiful terpenes. And right now we made a deal with Select here in Oregon with Tim Fitzpatrick to use the Captain Jack in their vape pens. So we have a Captain Jack vape pen, which is sold out … immediately. And we’re waiting for more. And we may make a deal that crosses other states.

So yeah, it’s kind of a cornerstone, one of the brands. We have Captain jack, we have the Blues Brothers. We have Secret Stash, which is my premium. And we’re gonna release a new one. We got a new name and I can’t release it right now.

Chris Walsh

So cap…, the Captain Jack strain. Did you do any market research on this aside from saying, “Hey, the crew at SNL loved it. I love it. Jack’s been selling it for a while. We think this is going to be a goldmine or a very useful strain that people are going to flock to?”

Jim Belushi

Well, my feeling was that it’s a great story, a real story.

And I smoked it. There was six of us around my pergola, and we shared a joint. And we started laughing, and we started trading jokes and coming up, heightening each other’s joke. You know, you’d say one thing and someone else would tag onto it.

We laughed for about 45 minutes straight. And then that moment I went, “Ah, I see where Danny got Coneheads.”

Chris Walsh

It was the Captain Jack strain.

Jim Belushi

This, this is a creative, fun cannabis strain. So I thought Saturday Night Live is something that’s been around almost 50 years. So even if you weren’t around in the 70s, even if you don’t know who John or Danny is, people still watch Saturday Night Live. So I think the hook of “smell of SNL” would cross over all the demos.

And I was counting on the product itself, which is sensational.

Chris Walsh

Well, I’m sure there’s thousands of stories of people in a similar situation, especially after smoking something that, you know, came up with a great idea that they thought would, would resonate with consumers or patients. And I’d say most cases that probably fails, so it’s good to good to hear you’re having success with that.

Can you … let’s talk about some of the lessons you’ve learned along the way from a business perspective, from a growing perspective. I understand there was a hiccup with the Captain Jack strain when you …

Jim Belushi

Oh, we gotta talk about that, do we?

Chris Walsh

We do. It’s a great lesson.

Jim Belushi

Yeah. You call it a hiccup. How polite, man. Yeah, more than a hiccup. It was embarrassing. Captain Jack barely speaks to me now because of it.

Chris Walsh

Let’s tell listeners what happened.

Jim Belushi

You know, because I want to do everything. I want to learn everything. The mothers … or not the mothers, the ones that were vegging, getting ready to plant. We had 240 of them. And they were different phenotypes. So we were, you know, we were really pheno hunting. And they needed to be sprayed with neem, a very organic type of pesticide that has been used for centuries and started from the neem plant in India.

So, you spray the plants with neem. But here’s the trick. You got to spray in the dark. So not only did I spray them with lights on, I got distracted, left the barn, left the lights on all night. And it killed them all.

Chris Walsh

Burned them …

Jim Belushi

Burned up. I mean, thank God, we had some clones in another, another part of the building. But we had to wait another whole cycle.

Oh my god, Captain Jack was so mad at me.

Chris Walsh

Since we’re focusing on mistakes, how much money do you think you lost with that?

Jim Belushi

Oh, I don’t know. You know, what … 200 plants … maturity (muttering the calculations). I mean, maybe 300,000 bucks? Maybe more.

Chris Walsh

300,000 bucks. Expensive mistake. But that’s how we all learn, especially in business.

Jim Belushi

You know what my cousin keeps saying to me – and I hate it, I hate it – when I make a mistake? Tuition.

Chris Walsh

Tuition for the education.

Jim Belushi

For the education.

Chris Walsh

Absolutely.

Jim Belushi

So I’ve paid my tuition. And this year, Chris, I don’t know if the business friends out there would appreciate what I’m about to say. I broke even!

Chris Walsh

That’s very exciting. So it took five, six years?

Jim Belushi

Yeah. I mean, I don’t have my money back from my original investment. I just want to break even for the year. I want to pay everybody.

But now, what I’m doing, upgrades. I’m taking that out of my pocket.

Chris Walsh

Well, that’s a great accomplishment. Congratulations.

Jim Belushi

Thank you!

Chris Walsh

What else have you learned from a business side along the way? I know you’ve had some some issues with employees, with hiring, with management, that sense? Can you highlight one or two things that you’ve learned?

Jim Belushi

In the outside world … In cannabis, it’s just like any other business, Chris. I meet with people. They’re always talking about the X.

You know, when you go to Pirates of the Caribbean, you go that little store afterwards. You get the little guns, little pistols and swords. They got a little thing, a map, little ribbon on it. And you open it up, and it’s parchment, the paper’s burned. And there’s a map of an island. And in the cove, there’s a big X where a treasure is.

But if you look at the map closely, there’s a path going up a rocky mountain to the top and then down to the X.

People in this industry always talk about the X. What’s the pot of gold? Don’t tease me. Don’t tempt me. Don’t try to bring my greed out. It’s one of the seven deadly sins, for Christ’s sake.

I want to talk about that path, about how to get there. Because when you get there, the journey is over. I enjoy the journey because that’s where you find magic.

So when people talk to me in business, I started listening … “Oh my god, stop with the X.” Stop talking about the X, let’s talk about the other stuff. How to get there, not what we’re gonna get.

Chris Walsh

To them, it’s all about the money.

Jim Belushi

Yeah, never been about the money. I didn’t make any money as an actor. And then one day, I did. The money follows you if you follow your passion. And it’s like, “Oh, there’s a little pot of gold behind me. I didn’t see that.” Because I was too busy looking forward at the purpose, the mission and, like the Blues Brothers, the mission from God – to heal, to help create pathways for people to find help for Alzheimers, headaches, backaches, PTSD. To enhance the sound of music, the taste of food, the touch of your lover’s skin. And also feel good. You have a right to feel good. That’s all part of the pathway of healing.

That is the mission from God. That’s why the Blues Brothers means so much to me in this brand in cannabis.

Chris Walsh

So can we drill down a little deeper and say, what is a big pivot or a particular innovation that you made with this business along the way that you think is worth highlighting?

Jim Belushi

Well, I mean, the only thing that I really think about, business wise, is just holding on until federal legalization.

This industry is not going to stop growing. And I’m doing all my lateral work, my branding, like finding out the best strains, knowing the best way to grow, comparables in the indoor-outdoor-greenhouse, all the different oils, all the different products.

I mean, I’m just studying, studying the healing, studying the medicine. So when it does break open, I have something that’s authentic and real.

The pivot point is, I don’t know, just don’t give up. And you may have to throw money – and I mean, the only people making money in this industry are the people on a stock exchange, the floating of those shares going up and down. Dispensaries are paying 280E taxes, their margins suck. Cultivators get a little bit of a break, because we put the price of producing goods against our expenses, but not all of them. It’s not the gold mine that people that people talk about.

Chris Walsh

Absolutely not. Yeah, it’s a common misconception.

Jim Belushi

I do believe that there is an X for everybody. And the X is not just in capital, but is in the healing of community.

And also, you know, again, going back to DeAngelo, you know, he’s got this Last Prisoner Project, which is about releasing these poor men and women that are incarcerated for this nonviolent crime of cannabis. While we’re out here, making a living doing it. So he’s got a great program. I’m part of it, the Last Prisoner Project.

Chris Walsh

Yeah, we’ve supported that effort as well. It’s, it’s a very good nonprofit with a good focus.

I understand that in response to kind of the oversupply issue that Oregon has experienced, you developed something called “good ugly weed.”

Jim Belushi

Oh, yeah. That’s the other strain!

Chris Walsh

Tell me about that really quick.

Jim Belushi

Okay, well, now we’re calling it Chris’ Good Ugly Weed.

Chris Walsh

I like it.

Jim Belushi

Yeah, Good Ugly Weed is … it’s really good weed! It’s just not looking like pristine, top-shelf trim bud. And it’s because it’s a commodity, market goes down to $600 a pound. It’s like, man, this is good stuff. It’s not trimmed the best, you know, but it’s a good stuff. And it’s a value deal. So yeah, we’re selling eighth for nothing, like 20 bucks. It’s nothing.

It’s like, for the working man. It’s like for the student.

Chris Walsh

I’m sure there’s a big market for that.

Jim Belushi

Yeah. It’s funny. Good Ugly Weed makes you laugh.

Chris Walsh

The name does too.

On a final note, one piece of advice that you would give others who are considering getting into the cannabis cultivation business.

Jim Belushi

(laugh) Ha!

Chris Walsh

I’m sure there’s a million pieces of advice, but if you were to boil it down, give me one …

Jim Belushi

I can give you one, I can give you one.

I mean, I was in a restaurant in an airport, and a guy recognized me. He came up to me, he was very excited. He said he was just investing, you know, with this other guy and a cousin and a, I don’t know. And they bought all this property and they’re gonna grow and he said, “Do you have any advice?”

I said, “Don’t be afraid to fire the grower.”

Chris Walsh

A-ha.

Jim Belushi

I’ve gone through three, four growers. You know, growers are like chefs. They think their meal is the best meal ever made.

Chris Walsh

That’s, that’s a common refrain in the industry.

Jim Belushi

There’s arrogance in these guys. You know, like, “Hey, man, what do you open your own grow then?” You know, listen.

Chris Walsh

Yeah. So don’t, don’t be afraid to make a tough staffing decision with if you need to.

Jim Belushi

Yeah, if they turn out where you got 300 pounds of mold, and there’s aphids on your plants. And they start using the excuse that “Well, it’s the parallel we’re in right now and it’s you know, it’s the weather and it’s the …” Man, I don’t want to hear excuses. I’m in show business. There’s no excuses. 300 pounds, you’re gone. Sorry, buddy, I love you. And I love your heart. But I got to break even. I got other people I have to pay.

Chris Walsh

Yep, that’s a great business lesson. In many cases, it takes a lot. It takes people a lot of time to feel comfortable doing that. And to understand why you have to as a business owner.

Jim Belushi

You know, there was this wise old man, a friend of my friends, and I said, “What, what is the one piece of advice you can give me?”

He took a long pause, and he said, “People wait too long. People wait too long to get rid of a boyfriend, to get rid of a girlfriend, to get rid of an employee, to know when to stop one business and move into another. You always wait two years. When you have that instinct, go with it.”

And he’s right, man. I could go back and count hundreds of times I held on to an employee too long, held on to you know, a relationship too long. So that’s my advice. Go with your instinct.

Chris Walsh

Excellent advice. All right, Jim. We are out of time. Thank you so much for joining us and for coming on the show and talking about your business and how you built it. And I look forward to talking to you down the road.

Jim Belushi

I look forward to seeing you again. Chris, thank you so much for having me.

[Music]

Chris Walsh

That concludes my discussion with Jim Belushi. Now, I realize that most, if not all, of you don’t have the war chest Jim had coming into cannabis, which he built from his acting career, but he’s dealt with many of the same challenges others experience along the way as well. For Jim, this isn’t about the money. It’s about what he calls the magic of cannabis to help people, which is truly what draws a lot of people into the industry.

Like many others, Jim has learned a lot through the school of hard knocks. There have been hiring missteps, lost harvests, expensive mistakes – all the hurdles one tends to face when building a cannabis operation.

When getting started, Jim leaned on several people who helped him understand cultivation and the plant and the market, including a geneticist, a cannabis consultancy, a numbers-and-business guy who also happens to be his cousin, Steve DeAngelo who started Harborside Health Center in California, and Captain Jack who had a unique strain from Afghanistan and once supplied the cast of Saturday Night Live with it.

It’s worth highlighting how he made it a point to meet customers and dispensary owners and really get to understand them, which can then guide your business strategy. In fact, Jim credits a patient he met who was a medic in Iraq for fully opening his eyes to the healing power of cannabis.

Now he’s transitioning from outdoor grows to greenhouses and implementing the latest technology. He loves the power of the sun. But keeping Bambi away and losing hundreds of pounds of cannabis to mold can be stressful.

I really liked how he talked about focusing on the journey in cannabis, not just getting to the X on the map. It’s a good reminder that this will be challenging, but that it can also be a lot of fun, that you have to embrace it all and not focus just on the destination.

As a final note, if someone isn’t working out, especially a head grower, move on and do it quickly.

Next week, I’ll be speaking with Nick Vita, the CEO of Columbia Care. Founded in 2012, the company started with humble beginnings managing a dispensary in Washington DC, but it’s grown to become one of the largest cannabis companies in the industry with operations in 18 states, Canada and Europe. We’ll talk about how the company has been able to do that and what you can learn from Nick’s experience.

Until then make sure to check out MJBizDaily.com for the latest news, analysis and data on the industry and sign up for our newsletter while you’re there. See you next time.