Jimmy Buffett has joined the growing list of musicians to enter the commercial marijuana industry by cutting a licensing deal with a medical cannabis company, Suterra Wellness, placing the “Margaritaville” singer in the same category as pot-friendly artists including Snoop Dogg and Willie Nelson.
Suterra will develop and market medical marijuana products and merchandise under the brand “Coral Reefer,” the name of Mr. Buffet’s long-running touring and recording band, a press release announced Tuesday.
“I have followed and studied with keen intensity the recent evolvement of the medical marijuana story and the path towards the simple common-sense conclusion that cannabis is good medicine and should be made available to all who need it,” Mr. Buffett, 71, said in a statement. “I feel that joining with Surterra, in the medical cannabis world, is the right place for Coral Reefer products to be.”
“Our brands are about quality and improving people’s lives,” added John Cohlan, Mr. Buffett’s business partner and Coral Reefer CEO. “Surterra shares our vision of creating a cannabis wellness lifestyle brand that improves the health of millions of people around the world.”
Founded in 2014, Surterra is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, and is currently licensed to operate in Texas and Florida – two of the 31 states and counting to pass legislation permitting medical marijuana in spite of federal law prohibiting the plant. The company currently products including vaporizer pens, tinctures and oral sprays, and “Coral Reefer” merchandise is slated to become available in 2019, according to the press release.
In addition to being the name of Mr. Buffett’s band, Coral Reefer is a limited liability company mainly owned by the musician and the team that manages Margaritaville Holdings, the parent company that manages a chain of more than two dozen Margaritaville restaurants located in the U.S. and abroad.
“Jimmy and the Margaritaville team have built premium brands that are widely admired and recognized around the world,” said Beau Wrigley, an heir to the Wrigley’s chewing gum fortune who recently joined Surterra as board chairman. “They share a long-term commitment to consumers and quality that we espouse at Surterra and together we have the infrastructure and capital to support fast-growing, high-quality brands. We are thrilled to be partnering with them,” he said in a statement.
Mr. Buffett has stopped smoking marijuana but occasionally vaporizes oils, according to a feature published earlier this year in The New York Times. His Margaritaville chain is headquartered in Orlando, Florida, and he supported legalizing medical marijuana within the Sunshine State prior to voters following through in 2016.
The singer is hardly the only artist to enter the commercial marijuana industry as of late, however, and others before him have already reported significant returns. The parent company of Willie’s Reserve, country singer Willie Nelson’s cannabis brand, had raised nearly $30 million in funding as of Jan. 2018, and a similar cannabis venture capital co-founded by rapper Snoop Dogg in 2016, Casa Verde Capital, had garnered $45 million as of March.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
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