One love. And many
weed-themed products. A line of marijuana accessories, hemp body products and
what's being marketed as the first global brand of commercial weed, all bearing
the blessing of reggae superstar Bob Marley's estate, went on sale this week.
Backed by Privateer Holdings, a Seattle-based private equity firm focused on
the cannabis indsutry, the Marley Natural brand is clearly designed to appeal
to a wider customer base than college kids with a Bob Marley "Legend"
poster on their dorm room wall. Body care products like hemp seed lotion and
body wash, as well as accessories like a wood-accented bubbler and black walnut
wooden case, are available for order online.
The company's brand of legal
marijuana will be available starting Saturday in Los Angeles, with plans to
bring it to the rest of California, Colorado, Washington, Nevada and Oregon
later this year. And all the products are cleanly packaged enough to look not
out of place at your local Whole Foods.
Bob Marley to Headline New Corporate Cannabis Brand
We are fortunate to be
living during a promising time of positive change, especially with regard to
cannabis and how people understand it," Cedella Marley, the singer's
daughter, said in a statement. "My dad would be so happy to see so many
people appreciating the natural, healing power of the herb." The brand
built around Bob Marley has done very well since the man himself died in 1981
at the age of 36. He ranks fourth on the Forbes list of top-earning dead
celebrities, thanks to continued high record sales and other products,
including beverages and lifestyle lines. Marley's name netted a total of $21 million in
2015, according to Forbes. He'll likely only shoot up that list with
the money that's almost certainly guaranteed by the launch of Marley Natural.
The market for legal weed is growing, and a brand built around a man known
almost everywhere on the planet for his devotion to marijuana as a vehicle for
religious experience — and bolstered by marketing from the same folks who
brought us the Starbucks mermaid — seems like a sure bet.
National sales of legal
marijuana jumped from $4.6 to $5.4 billion in 2015, according to
research from the ArcView Group, which tracks the cannabis industry, and could
climb to $6.7 billion for this year. They project the market could balloon to
as much as $21.8
billion over the next five years, with adult recreational users
taking over the lion's share of the market from medicinal marijuana buyers.
"The strong growth in demand for legal cannabis over the past two years is
expected to continue in the years ahead," ArcView says in the report,
which was released Feb 1. "With nearly a dozen states debating changes to
their cannabis laws in the coming year, 2016 will be the tipping point in which
a majority of U.S. states transition from cannabis prohibition to some form of
regulated legal markets."
Vice Wars: Tobacco, Alcohol and the Rise of Big Marijuana
While Marley is
arguably popular culture's most popular ambassador of marijuana, everyone from
Melissa Etheride to Snoop Dogg to Willie Nelson have made moves to get in on
the act, as what was once a mildly rebellious act becomes ever more mainstream.
"It is extremely important to us and to the family that Marley Natural
operates with integrity and a strong social conscience," Marley Natural
general manager Tahira Rehmatullah said in a statement. "We source our
products in an environmentally and socially responsible way, as we believe Bob
Marley would have wanted."
