It’s pot, it’s smokeless—and it’s publicly traded
One company trying to figure out the right long-term strategy is mCig. The firm sells an e-cigarette-style product for marijuana, while at the same time is expanding into products that don’t involve pot at all.
E-cigarettes for marijuana are already widely available, but the mCig is different. It’s something of a hybrid between an e-cig and a joint, in that you can put “dry herb” in it and heat it to the edge of combustion.
“When you burn something, you burn about 50 percent of the material, whereas with this, you can turn off the power and nothing continues to burn,” said mCig COO Mark Linkhorst. “It’s very much more efficient than smoking it.” He said the mCig is less harmful than traditional smoking, and it can make the same amount of marijuana last twice as long.
The mCig is rechargeable and sells for the relatively low price of $10. It’s made in China.
“We believe that by disrupting the price, and being at the head of the line in innovation, we can sell it at a minimal profit, because we want to sell millions of the product,” said Linkhorst. Last quarter the company reported a small profit.
Linkhorst believes the vaporization market is largely untapped. “We think there’s maybe 150 million marijuana smokers in the world. Only 1 percent of them are vaporizing.”
At the same time, mCig is trying to hedge its bets with products that don’t involve marijuana at all. It’s releasing the VitaCig, a $2 e-cig that the company claims vaporizes vitamins with fruit or spearmint flavors. The company is pitching the product as serving two purposes—providing an alternative for people who can’t or don’t want to swallow vitamins in pill form, and also as an aid to stop smoking.
“People who are trying to quit smoking can use this product to satisfy their hand-to-mouth motion and not go back to smoking cigarettes,” said Khari Bryan, who helped develop the product as part of mCig’s medical advisory board. One could argue it could also do the opposite, leading someone to move from vaporizing vitamins on to something else.
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