Born Global: Timeless Herbal Care Prepares to Supply Medical Marijuana to Canadians

Description

In 2012, a former crown attorney for Canada’s Department of Justice started Timeless Herbal Care, a company that was intended to capitalize on Jamaica’s deregulation of marijuana for medical purposes. The entrepreneur and his family relied on their ties to Jamaica and his legal expertise to create a legislative framework for Jamaica’s medical marijuana industry to meet international standards. Concurrently, Canada was readying legislation to allow qualified individuals to purchase and use medical marijuana. As one of about a dozen Health Canada-authorized licensed producers of the product, the new venture was entering uncharted space where legal and business issues would likely emerge within the next few years. The entrepreneur needed a strategy to combat the misconceptions about the use of marijuana for medical purposes and concerns regarding the importation of Jamaican marijuana product into Canada.

Learning Objective

This case is designed for use in both undergraduate and graduate courses on the legal environment, global business, entrepreneurship, and business policy and regulation. After completion of the case, students will be able to ·assess the potential of an emerging sector using course concepts; ·identify the difficulties inherent in creating new industries under an uncertain regulatory environment; ·assess the role of regulation in a new industry emergence; ·discuss the balance between regulation and innovation; ·assess the value of co-operating with potential competitors to build the legitimacy of a new industry; and ·understand negative perceptions and how to work to overcome them.

Keywords

Business policy global legal negative perceptions regulation