StemCell United recently announced that it had appointed someone many of us know as the “King of Cannabis,” Nevil Schoenmakers, to be its strategic advisor on medical marijuana.
This week’s announcement by the Australia-based biotech company, which focuses on traditional Chinese plant extracts, drove its stock up a breezy 3,800 percent.
The combination of cash and cannabis does it again.
StemCell United (SCU) decided to get involved in medical cannabis, chose the right man for the job and they’re cashing in already.
A report from Grand View Research that projected the global market for medical weed products would reach $55.8 billion by 2025 might have had something to do with SCU’s entrepreneurial decision.
According to the ABN Newswire, Jamie Khoo of SCU, said: “SCU’s ability to attract experts the stature of Mr. Schoenmakers demonstrates tremendous confidence in our prospects in this market.”
So, who is Nevil Schoenmakers?
Nevil’s work in breeding and improving the genetics of plants made him a legend in the 1980s, as his potent and hardy varieties became the basis for most of the strains widely used around the world today.
Nevil, who started growing cannabis in 1978, founded one of the world’s largest seed distribution businesses, the Seed Bank of Holland, through which he mailed seeds to American customers and other global markets.
Nevil is credited with creating many of the most popular award winning strains such as Silver Pearl, Northern Lights #5 x Haze and his greatest achievement, according to HIGH TIMES’ Senior Cultivation Editor Danny Danko, Nevil’s Haze.
Schoenmakers, a Dutch-Australian dual citizen who traveled between the two countries and then some, was detained in Australia in 1990 at the behest of the U.S. government, which was seeking his extradition on 44 drug-related counts.
After holding him for 11 months while appealing the extradition, the Australians let him out on bail and Nevil promptly disappeared.
Despite trumpeting its success in getting the Australians to apprehend him, the U.S. Justice Department never succeeded in arresting Schoenmakers. They eventually lost interest, or hope, and the charges were quietly dropped.
The Australians and Interpol also had no active warrants for his arrest when he returned there two years ago and starting working with AusCann, a global MMJ company that recently went public on the Australian stock market.
AusCann’s founder, Troy Langman, said Schoenmakers had been unfairly targeted for much of his adult life for conducting work in Holland which was perfectly legal and for filling an important role in helping gravely ill patients seek relief by developing reliable, specifically engineered strains of cannabis.
“Every business needs a Nevil,” said Langman, “someone who knows cannabis and its properties and can breed varieties for specific properties.”
If only our leaders here in the United States would step out of the way and allow our Nevils to flourish and work in peace.
You can keep up with all of HIGH TIMES’ marijuana news right here.