EXCLUSIVE: Kevin O'Leary On Why Cannabis Industry Attracts 'Zero' Institutional Dollars

While “Shark Tank” judge Kevin O’Leary views legal psychedelics as a once-in-a-lifetime investment opportunity, his take on cannabis is 180 degrees away.

“There isn’t a dime of institutional money here, at the sovereign level,” O’Leary told Benzinga founder and CEO Jason Raznick in a keynote discussion Tuesday at the inaugural Benzinga Psychedelics Capital Conference. “Zero. The industry, in my view, screwed itself.”

Why? The federal status of cannabis as a Schedule 1 drug.

That distinction makes cannabis difficult for institutional investors, said O’Leary, who is the chairman of O’Shares ETFs, among other pursuits.

O’Leary Says ‘Soul-Searching’ Needed In Cannabis: Transporting cannabis across state lines could trigger RICO statutes, O’Leary said.

“I don’t want to be the test case for that theory.”

Ahead of the two-day Benzinga Cannabis Capital Conference, O’Leary suggested the industry “do some soul-searching and say, ‘how do we fix this?’”

The cannabis industry needs to convince President Joe Biden to remove cannabis from the Schedule 1 list, he said, so the industry can be bifurcated into FDA-approved medicine and recreational sales.

“You’ve got a lot of tension in the space that should have been resolved early on,” he said. “Recreational cannabis is great, but it’s a nothing burger compared to what it would be if it were medicine.”

Why Canadian Cannabis Margins Are ‘Getting Crushed’: O’Leary, who was born in Montreal, gave a thumbs-down Tuesday to the Canadian cannabis space from an investment standpoint.

Referring to the province of Ontario, he said: “That business sucks. They don’t allow them to brand anything.”

The price-to-earnings ratios of Canadian cannabis stocks “have been crushed,” O’Leary said.

“There’s no differentiation. [Canadian cannabis companies] are selling it as a commodity and margins are getting crushed.”

"Shark Tank" judge Kevin O'Leary speaks Tuesday at the Benzinga Psychedelics Capital Conference in Miami Beach, Florida. Photo by Dez Smith.