9/11 and Medical Marijuana

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Todd Harrison, this week's guest on Masters in Business, was working as a trader at 40 Fulton Street on Sept. 11, 2001. When the planes hit the towers, he had a clear view from his office. Watching people holding hands as they leapt out of top floor windows affected him greatly. Survivor's guilt and other post-traumatic stress led to the usual cocktail of antidepressants.

But Harrison hated how they made him feel, and he was concerned they were changing the essence of who he was. Applying the same research skills he had honed on the derivatives desk at Morgan Stanley, and at hedge funds such as Galleon Group and Cramer Berkowitz, he began researching alternatives.

The result was the launch of CB1 Capital, a hedge fund focusing on cannabis-based solutions and biopharmaceutical applications and therapies. Harrison explains how cannabinoids are changing the face of health care and medicine.

Harrison also wrote the trading diary at TheStreet.com, which was the first real-time trading blog. He eventually launched investor education site Minyanville, which won an Emmy award for its Hoofy and Boo characters designed to make finance accessible to kids.

His favorite books are cited here; our conversation transcript is published here.

You can stream/download the full conversation, including the podcast extras on iTunes, Bloomberg, Overcast and Stitcher. Our earlier podcasts can all be found on iTunes, Stitcher, Overcast and Bloomberg.

Next week, we speak with journalist Paul Vigna about crypto and the blockchain. He is the author of “The Age of Cryptocurrency: How Bitcoin and the Blockchain Are Challenging the Global Economic Order” and “The Truth Machine: The Blockchain and the Future of Everything.”

To contact the editor responsible for this story: James Greiff at jgreiff@bloomberg.net

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