Business View Magazine | March 2019

258 get a lot of positive momentum in Texas. The level of education, of objective information, is being absorbed by decision makers but there is still a threat of some pretty bad legislation coming through that would tamp down the market or work against us, so we need to be proactive about that. The second thing is the nationwide flood of CBD products; everyone is making claims from bio-availability to sourc- ing, and there’s a lot of white noise. So, one of the key challenges for us, now that we have our product in place, is effectively telling our true brand story to set us apart.” Ricca: “Four years ago, Texas started a very limited compassionate use medical marijuana program. There was great fanfare, a huge market, 150,000 kids were going to be able to participate. So, the state set really high permit- ting fees, and only a few companies had the money, so what ended up happening was… nothing. The last I heard there were less than 600 patients from three labs. The people who invested a lot of money and haven’t seen a return are doubling down on their legislators; pushing against any expansion that doesn’t go through to them. That’s going to be the PEBBLE GLOBAL HOLDINGS