Martha Stewart: The Foodie With 9 Lives

You can say anything you want about Martha Stewart, but I don’t know of anyone in food that is more resilient and brilliant and continues to be relevant.

Bloomberg reports that Martha has teamed up with the world’s largest cannabis company, Canopy Growth Corp., taking on an advisory role to help develop a broad new line of products for both humans and animals.

“I am looking forward to working with the Canopy Growth team,” Stewart said in a statement. “I’m especially looking forward to collaborating on developing products that can help people and their treasured animal companions.” Stewart, who is 77, is an animal lover who co-hosts a cooking show with rapper and well-known marijuana smoker Snoop Dogg. 

The U.S. Farm Bill, passed in December, legalized CBD (cannabidiol) derived from hemp under certain circumstances. The Food and Drug Administration has said any CBD product marketed as having therapeutic benefits must be approved for its intended use before it’s introduced into interstate commerce.  

Financially, it was also great news for Sequential Brands Group Inc, which owns the Martha Stewart media and merchandising brands, as its stock surged on the announcement. That day, shares gained as much as 56%, their biggest one-day gain since 2012, to $1.87 at 9:41 a.m. in New York.  

Canopy is conducting several clinical trials exploring how cannabis compounds can improve human and animal health, including research into the effectiveness of CBD, a nonintoxicating compound, to treat anxiety in animals. CBD has soared in popularity and is thought by its proponents to help with everything from stress to inflammation and insomnia.

Martha does it once again. Well, she is from New Jersey.