Pot goes corporate

The scene at last weekend's Cannabizz Fest was a study in contrast; stoner stereotypes ambled past sleek company exhibits staffed by uniformed representatives, ready for meetings with local distributors on the Czech market.

The event's name suggested a hazy festival for music and marijuana, but the reality was actually a tightly-coordinated trade fair that's been a couple years in planning, according to organizer Jiří Tomášek, who organized the event with several other associates interested in hosting the first of its kind in Prague.

"We invited the very top companies, and a lot of them even contacted us before we had a chance to ask them," he said. "They know the Czech market is growing, and they want to be here. It's a business for them, and if the market in Eastern Europe is opening up, they want to be here for that."

More than 80 exhibitors came from all over the world, mainly EU countries like the Netherlands and Spain, to showcase and sell cannabis seeds, fertilizer, soil, grow lamps, advanced indoor horticulture equipment and other accessories at Karlín's Thámova Hall, the former boiler factory of ČKD Dukla.

The Czech Republic has nearly 40 "grow shops," stores that cater to growing cannabis at home, and many of these were present to showcase the brand or meet with the big companies from countries where the market is bigger thanks to more welcoming drug laws. While the Czech Republic's drug laws were changed Jan. 1 - the new legislation specified the amount of marijuana someone can grow for personal consumption - it didn't necessarily relax laws.

"I put it this way: Everyone was driving 60 km per hour when the speed limit wasn't specific. Now the law has made it 60 km per hour. It's only put a number or a name to a situation that already existed," said Pavel Smolik, co-owner of Growshop.cz, a company established 14 years ago in Prague.

Many of the seed companies were Spanish or Dutch, bringing nearly dozens of varieties of marijuana seeds, and hoping to get a foothold in stores in Prague.

"There are about 500 grow shops in Spain, where the laws are more relaxed," said Oier Gorospe, the technical director of Dinafem Seeds, a company from northern Spain. Gorospe's company had a busy schedule of meetings with local distributors over the three-day period from Sept. 17 to 19. "We're here to talk to some of the Czech companies, the local distributors. We are definitely interested in what we see as a growing market here. ... I think the seed business will really explode here."

Other companies already have a sizeable network of distributors, but brand awareness is a key to continued success and reason enough to not only attend but sponsor Cannabizz Fest, according to Henk Ijpelaar, the sales director and co-founder of Hesi, a fertilizer company. Fifteen years ago, Ijpelaar started his company in the Netherlands with his wife, a chemist who formulated a fertilizer that has taken off with marijuana growers worldwide. Now, the company has a presence not only across Europe, but in Asia, South America and North America.

"It was a big gamble" to sponsor the fair, Ijpelaar said. "Four months ago, I came and saw the hall here and thought, 'Oh jeez, what did I agree to?' But this organization did a really wonderful job. We'll be back next year in the same spot as a main sponsor again, just to show how happy we are with it."

Ijpelaar said his company's fertilizers are carried in about 32 grow shops, but through deals at the fair, he's picked up a few more distributors.

"I'd say I'm up to about 95 percent of the stores here [carrying Hesi products] now," he said.

For now, Czech companies are acting as distributors for products made abroad, which have had more time to establish brands and develop products that have gained renown.

"I'm sure in the future there will be Czech companies creating their own products," Tomášek said. "But right now, if you tried to compete with, say, Sensi Seeds, it'd be a joke."

Police presence outside the event kept actual marijuana consumption to a minimum, but that wasn't the point, Tomášek stressed.

"We're not dealers," he said. "We've been in contact with Prague 8, and they said they don't have a problem with it. It's just another fair for them, but with different products."

In fact, for most of the companies, the curious gawkers and personal buyers were also beside the point. Eurosales.com's elaborate staged area had nary a photograph or reference to marijuana plants, instead using images of indoor agriculture and complex chemistry and botanical equipment. Company representative Orlando Jansen said the company hasn't yet had any distributors in the Czech Republic, but was hoping the event would allow them to collaborate with some "like-minded companies."

"Friday was a good day for us," Jansen said. "There were more companies interested and walking around. Today there's a lot more smokers in here, and those guys aren't our customers."

Claire Compton can be reached at
ccompton@praguepost.com