There’s no company rise and fall that more typifies the marijuana rush in Canada than Medijean.
Today, a few kilometres away from where I’m typing, a research and grow facility that Medijean designed to be a world leader, that cost some $10 million to put together, will go under the auctioneer’s hammer. Able Auctions says around $1 million of gear will be sold, much of it still in the original wrapping.
.
Not included in the sale will be Medijean’s level 10 vault. That, from now on, will be used to store toilet paper for a hotel supply business that has taken over the building.
The Medijean story is a dumb one. From the outset it was just a clown car and it never got better than that level.
Let’s start with naming your company after yourself. Imagine if I started an MMPR and called it ParryWeed. Yoinks.
But Jean Chiasson did just that, starting Medijean with reportedly $10 million of his family’s money. According to multiple sources, Young Chiasson had been reportedly flailing about in life, all rich and gormless and into weed, when legalization showed up and Old Chiasson saw an opportunity to get the kid on a good path.
So the money was plonked down to finance Jean’s dream of being a legal weed kingpin. It’ll be great! He’ll really come into his own at last. Family get-togethers will be so much easier..
So with big money spent on the building ($5m), machines that looked pretty and lots of white lab coats, and 35 staff (for an operation that had no grow license), Chiasson The Dimmer set about getting his MMPR application done.
Cart before the horse? Sure. As far back as January 2014, Chiasson was telling reporters he expected to have his license by ‘early 2014,’ which was jusssst a bit off target in hindsight.
But the city approved their permits, and the company even reportedly got through a Health Canada security check.
Then, allegedly, according to unverified reports, gossip and he said/she said, the kid got a little ‘tired and emotional’ one weekend and, depending on which story you listen to, either got happy with his fists in a domestic capacity, or went on a cocaine bender, or both – or neither. Chiasson says the accusation is he was hooked into organized crime, which is hardly better.
Either way, the cops got involved and Health Canada caught wind and did a second security check, which Blue Jean duly failed.
So many problems here. First, without the Jean in Medijean, how would anything move forward? Surely Chaisson had no intention of stepping aside and letting someone else ride the pony his pappy had paid for, because the whole thing was designed to give the playboy partyboy some sort of reason for being in the first place.
But second, and more important, Chiasson went to Twitter and started tossing his fellow execs under the bus without a moment of forethought. And then ran that bus back and forth over them a few times, and then lit their crumpled bodies on fire.
“[Medijean Chief Strategy Officer] Anton Mattadeen talks bullshit. Knows nothing of medical marijuana,” said one tweet. “[Chief Operating Officer] Chris Dollard knows nothing of medical marijuana or the business of medical marijuana. Before this year he was just a user,” he sprayed in another.
So that’s healthy. But it wasn’t the end of the shit show.
“Liar. Thief. Bullshit artist”, Chiasson said of his Director of Research, Charles Scott. According to the now flipping out CEO, Scott “wrote false anonymous letters to Health Canada and RCMP” and “raped and pillaged us.”
Chiasson would also yell that he was going to sue Health Canada – and the RCMP, which was headquartered literally right next door to his facility. So many smart moves.
Of course, everyone eventually sobers up for a few hours and realizes they’ve become a human tire fire, so Chiasson told reporters his Twitter account had been hacked, which is the sort of unmitigated bullshit that has never worked, yet still gets wheeled out with regularity by people who only ever seem to experience hackers when their social media accounts say something ridiculous in their name. Weird.
Regardless, Chiasson later told media he agreed with what the hackers had posted. In fact, to this day he has this retweet on his feed:
@jeanchiasson Google the names of employees next time.CS does this to everyone,join the club.Charles is an informant I believe
— Gabrielle Butterfiel (@butterfield67) September 21, 2014
So I think we can safely assume Chiasson’s tires continue to burn.
So what happened next? Juicy shit is what. Allegedly.
I hear from someone close to the asset sale that while Health Canada was being appealed to and harassed on the regular, someone was sliding ‘research weed’ through the side door and selling it on the street. I couldn’t tell you if that someone’s name rhymes with Schmiasson.
But when Pappy Chiasson caught wind of this, he gave the crew 15 minutes to get their things, changed the locks, and sold the building ASAP.
No ‘let’s bring in a new CEO’, no ‘let’s sell the facility to another weed company and get some of our money back’ – nope. Kill it. End it. Burn it all. F’ing kids, amirite?
The new owner of the Medijean building is a hotel supply company, and they wanted nothing to do with the old business. Thus, the whole kit and caboodle is selling at Able Auctions in Richmond today. Gonna go see who shows up.
And thus ends one of the dumber chapters of the Canadian weed space.
Anyone need a Charmin hookup? I know a guy.
–Chris Parry
http://www.twitter.com/chrisparry