Transcript
James West: I’m joined now by Matt Murphy, Chief Compliance Officer
of Khiron Life Sciences, trading on the TSX Venture under the symbol KHRN.
Matt, welcome back.
Matt Murphy: Thanks James. It’s a pleasure to be with you again, I
very much appreciate it.
James West: You bet. Matt, there’s a lot of uncertainty in minds of
investors, arguably, about the ability of security to protect the interests
of cannabis companies in not just Latin America but the entire world. And in
your position as former DEA head of compliance and diversion, you’ve got some
very specialized knowledge in that regard, and in fact, you’ve joined a
roundtable consisting of some members and former DEA guys. Tell me about what
you’re doing to mitigate the risk of security as it pertains to cultivation sites
and everything in Latin America, as well as this roundtable.
Matt Murphy: Sure. So in regards to the security and compliance
that Khiron is undertaking as we evolve and expand our operations globally, I
have brought on several former high-level DEA investigators, managers that
worked with me or that I knew from my time with DEA. These former high-level
DEA management personnel have significant amount of experience working in
countries where Khiron will be operating soon, or is operating now. For
example, Larry Holifield is a former country attache for Mexico, which means
he was the highest ranking DEA agent assigned to Mexico. He lived in Mexico
for approximately four years. He was also assigned to Guatemala and has
experience in Uruguay, all places that we expect to be in. Obviously Mexico
is a place where we have a country manager, we have significant opportunity
as soon as things become clearer from a regulatory perspective there.
The reason this is important is because Larry has extensive relationships
with former generals in Mexico, the former Attorney General in Mexico…so as we
expand and evolve into Mexico specifically, we know because of Larry’s
relationships and his ability to leverage those relationships, that we will
be able to be doing business there with the right people, people that are
vetted, people that are experienced, people that are trusted. People that
Larry and our former colleagues in Mexico worked with when they were assigned
there, some that are still assigned there.
So these things are very important to me as Chief Compliance Officer in
charge of the security for Khiron, and that’s just one example. Another
example would be, we just hired Trevor Devine. Trevor’s a former DEA agent,
just retired in the last month. He is a pilot; he is able to fly many
different aircraft, both fixed-wing and rotary. He is also a Colonel in the
United States Marine Corps, has extensive experience in moving logistics,
moving personnel. He answers directly to General Maddis when he was active in
places like Europe and central command and places like that.
As we speak, Trevor is deployed to Afghanistan, working over there with
our military, with our marines, and with our contractors that are assigned
there, working there. When he finishes up that assignment on August 5th, he
will report to Khiron. He will report to me, and he is going to be working
with Henry Tibaduiza, Khiron Security Director, to ensure that as we move our
high-value product, which obviously is medical cannabis right now in
Colombia, as we move our product from our grow site in Dorma (phon) which is
approximately four, four and a half hours from Bogota to Bogota and other
places, facilities, labs, in Colombia, and as we move our product to
pharmacies in Colombia.
Trevor will be working closely with Henry and others in Colombia to ensure
the safety of our transportation routes, ensuring that our logistics is
properly tracked and traced, ensure that we are operating in a safe manner,
and ensure that we are operating with the right people, obviously, in
Colombia, where we’ll be moving product very soon.
We also brought on James Connelly. Jim Connelly is a criminal investigator
with DEA that I’ve known for over 30 years; we were actually at college
together. Jim has extensive experience with criminal investigations, special
operations, and he was a country attache in the Bahamas. He also was a
supervisor of a strike force. He also is a retired special agent in charge
out of the Boston office, as was I. Worked very closely with Jim, and he’s
going to help us ensure that, you know, we are vetting the right people, we
are vetting people properly, that we are doing business with the right people
throughout Khiron’s operations.
So we’re very, very excited about the addition of some of my former
colleagues, because DEA, as an agency, operates in just about every country
where the US has an embassy, and based on that, and based on our
relationships with our counterparts in those countries, with our former
colleagues in those countries, we have an extensive ability to draw back on
those relationships to ensure that Khiron is operating in a safe manner, a
compliant manner, and it just makes sense as the industry evolves to
different countries, as Khiron evolves with it, as we go different places, we
have people in those places that we can call. Some are friends, some are just
former colleagues, but you know, we’re all on the same page, we all did the
same thing for a long, long time.
So I’m very excited about that, and in regards to the National Cannabis
Roundtable, Khiron joined the National Cannabis Roundtable, which is an
entity headed up by our Chairpersons John Boehner, former Speaker of the
House. The goal of the National Cannabis Roundtable is to bring common-sense
Federal regulation to the cannabis industry in the US, as things start to
move forward, and hopefully Federal legislation legalizing cannabis is
imminent.
We would like to see prior to that, though, Safe Banking Act legislation
passed so that cannabis companies in the US will no longer need to move money
and product in, you know, Brinks trucks; they’ll be able to utilize banks and
financial institutions to do banking like other legitimate businesses in the
US and other countries are allowed to do.
James West: So be able to use the electronic banking system?
Matt Murphy: Yeah. I mean, we want to use whatever is legally available
to other industries should be legal available to the cannabis industry,
specifically right now in those states where cannabis is legal. And
obviously, the hope and the goal is that cannabis is legal in every state;
it’ll probably happen some time around the next election, I would think,
because I think every candidate that has spoken about cannabis legislation is
favourable towards it.
So what that looks like, you know, nobody knows right now. But hey, if we
can at least get the banking law changed so that Federally, these companies
could use banks, it would be a huge help, and it just makes sense, as you or
anybody else that is involved in the industry knows, and we’ll see. I mean,
there are a lot of initiatives that the NCR is working towards, and the group
works closely with legislators in the US, and obviously with somebody of John
Boehner’s stature, that is very helpful. Kevin Murphy from Acreage is a
member and is, you know, working closely with John Boehner to assist in
getting things done. So I’m very excited about that. It’s given me and
Khiron, I should say, an inside look into how things work, and we are leaders
in the industry at Khiron, and we expect to be in the US in a big way when
Federal legislation changes the law. And you know, we already have a joint
venture with Dixie, as you know, so we’re not shy about entering the US and
there’s no reason to be, because it’s a huge market that we want to exploit
when the time comes, and we want to be ready to move forward.
James West: You bet. All right, Matt, that’s a great update. Thank
you very much for your participation as usual. We’ll leave it there for now,
and come back to you soon. Thank you for joining me today.
Matt Murphy: All right. Thanks, James, look forward to talking to
you again.
James West: You bet.
