Actor Leonardo DiCaprio at the UK premiere of "The Wolf Of Wall Street" in January 2014. (Joel Ryan, Invision/AP)

How this former ‘Wolf of Wall Street’ hopes to grow legal weed in New York

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.