The man who was once the vice president of corporate finance at Stratton Oakmont — Jordan Belfort’s fraudtastic investment banking firm at the center of Martin Scorsese’s “The Wolf of Wall Street” — is now a ganjapreneur looking to grow legal marijuana in New York.
From the New York Post’s report:
Dean Petkanas’ new company is among the 43 entities vying for one of five lucrative medical-marijuana licenses in New York state — an eclectic group that includes a hospital group whose boss previously worked for an ex-governor, and two nursing-home operators who run a facility at the center of a recent scandal.
“Now it’s a waiting game,” said Petkanas, who worked for three years at Stratton Oakmont, the pump-and-dump brokerage featured in the 2013 Martin Scorsese-directed film.
He now heads Long Island-based medical-marijuana company KannaLife Sciences, which is eying 700 acres in Buffalo for a “green” grow site.
“If we do [get the license], great. If we don’t, we’re still there for the state of New York,” added Petkanas.
Petkanas recently shared his hopes for KannaLife with Men’s Journal:
Hopefully we’ll be around for years to come. Hopefully we’ll be providing information that’s critical and invaluable to the marketplace when it comes to delivering the cannabinoid-based therapeutics to the market because at this point it’s not going to turn back on itself. It’s only going to continue to move forward.
