Medical Marijuana, Inc.: Definitely a Dope Opera

It has been nine months since I first learned about Medical Marijuana, Inc. (OTC:MJNA), the first publicly-traded company focused on cannabis (following its 2009 reverse-merger) and clearly the most popular name in the sector, with a purported 40K shareholders earlier this year and over 6500 Seeking Alpha readers signed up for alerts. I have gotten to know the company very well since then, but, even after sharing my thoughts here twenty times, there is never a shortage of twists and turns in this exciting drama. At a price of $0.135 (market cap of about $130mm), down from $0.50 in February and from about $0.25 at the peak this summer but still up from $0.10 at the end of 2012, MJNA is frustrating both bulls and bears. The story just took a shocking turn.

Q3 Review

In typical fashion, MJNA missed the soft deadline for Pink Sheet Current as described in the OTC Pink Basic Disclosure Guidelines, as they were technically due on the 14th (45 days after 9/30). After one quarter in which they were actually early, they lapsed again. Who can forget the scramble in May as they posted the document, with several pages missing, at 11:59 PM PST! The company continues to scan in its filings (crookedly too) rather than uploading a document, a process which leaves them unsearchable over the internet (and impossible, without creating an image, to cut and paste into Seeking Alpha articles!).

In any event, not surprisingly, the quarter showed little signs of business momentum, with negligible sales and operating losses. This wasn’t really a big surprise, though the results were worse than expected. 

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