Legalized Medical Marijuana Company Now Public Stock, Really (CVIV)

If you thought that the legalized marijuana for medicinal purposes was a controversial, imagine how controversial it would be if a company was public in the sector of legalized marijuana.  Forget the “if” in the equation.  This week, a small and formerly unknown company called Club Vivanet announced that it is the first public company to enter the legalized, medical marijuana business.  The company even changed its name to Medical Marijuana, Inc.  While it does not trade on the NYSE nor on the NASDAQ, the stock does trade over-the-counter under the ticker “CVIV” and is listed as Medical Marijuana, Inc. (OTC: CVIV) on the pink sheets.

This morning the company filed a patent application for an invention that the company says “potentially satisfies various governmental and the medical marijuana dispensaries’ needs for tax collection in the medical marijuana industry.”  This is to identify the dispensary’s tax ID number and tax rates for state and local taxes.

Medical Marijuana, Inc. is currently undergoing a 1-10 forward split and a ticker symbol change to reflect its new name in the stock market.   The company is spinning off two subsidiaries on a share-for-share basis (pre 10 for 1 forward split) of the shares of Club Vivanet, Inc. (a Florida corporation) and MyNewPedia Corp (a Colorado Corporation).

The company’s description says that it is positioned to take advantage of opportunities as they appear in the emerging legal medical marijuana industry through an enhanced payment gateway introducing verifiable levels of enhanced security. It also states that a trend is in place that clearly indicates medical marijuana is quickly becoming a legal enterprise in need of various solutions in numerous areas.

Bruce Perlowin is serving as the company’s new Chairman and CEO.  He has been referred to as the “King of Pot” in various articles and was recently interviewed on CNBC’s most popular feature called “Marijuana, Inc.”  Here is a link to that video interview.

Whether or not this one takes off is something we won’t speculate on.  If you ever thought that cannabis, pot, weed, or hemp were not going to be applied to a public company, it looks like that has changed.  The Mustang Ranch, a brothel in Nevada, had tried to come public before.  A brothel in Australia did manage to go public at one time.  It seems that even for a legalized medical marijuana company coming public, stranger things have happened.

JON C. OGG
April 3, 2009