When Mowgli Holmes and his childhood friend Nishan Karassik founded Phylos Bioscience in 2014 they had one major goal: to provide more transparency in the cannabis industry.
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They never could have guessed in 2014 that …. they would be the subject of suspicion and outright contempt …. [T]he transition from the illicit trade in marijuana to the mostly licit cannabis industry was never going to be without its complications and conflicts. Large science firms and Big Agriculture see an opportunity. Little cannabis sees a threat.
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The real bombshell …. was when Holmes introduced a few members of the Phylos advisory board, one of whom had worked for Syngenta for years, and another who was VP of technology acquisition at the merged Dow and DuPont. Holmes continued: “So, having these guys around is just critical for us, because we’re building a company that is ultimately going to be acquired by that universe.”
To breeders and growers who had often heard Phylos employees publicly disparage Monsanto, affiliation with Syngenta and Dow/DuPont sounded like a deal with the devil.
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The episode is emblematic of a larger trend unfolding in the still-nascent legal cannabis business: The science and technology of mainstream agriculture is about to revolutionize marijuana.
Read full, original article: High Drama: A Cannabis Biotech Company Roils Small Growers
