Can reality television help save the marijuana industry?

Jerry Millen believes the $32 billion legal cannabis industry is at a tipping point and in desperate need of help. A rescue, one could say.

The successful cannabis retailer wants to apply to a technique to legal marijuana that’s worked as a lifeline in other sectors – one he believes can help achieve federal legalization while also saving struggling small businesses: reality television.

Millen, CEO of licensed adult-use store Greenhouse in Walled Lake, Michigan, is also a veteran of television.

He and two other experienced and successful producers are the masterminds behind “Cannabiz Rescue,” a reality-TV concept with a filmed pilot they’re pitching to streaming services.

The idea is simple and familiar.

Struggling cannabis retailers suffer a ritual of public semi-humiliation, as every aspect of their business and why it’s struggling are scrutinized with the goal of finding workable solutions to help them.

Think “Bar Rescue” but for cannabis.

‘CannaBiz Rescue’ is ‘Bar Rescue,’ for marijuana – from ‘Bar Rescue’ creators

In fact, do think that – and think how successful “Bar Rescue” was – especially if you are an executive at a major streaming service.

That’s Millen’s thinking. He worked on “Bar Rescue” before turning to cannabis.

“The decks are stacked against dispensaries,” Millen recently told MJBizDaily, ticking off an all-too-familiar list of grievances: high taxes, onerous regulations, a resilient illicit market – and only limited help from government.

“Stores are failing,” he said. “There’s a race to the bottom.”

“We need to get out of this mess.”

Part of the mess is self-created. Too many cannabis entrepreneurs embrace  a pattern of behavior Millen calls “the marijuana lifestyle.”

A holdover from the legacy pre-legalization days when money came fast and heavy – and could vanish in an instant, be it through an arrest or a robbery – the “marijuana lifestyle” sees entrepreneurs spend too much too quickly and on the wrong priorities, Millen said.

Millen is also one of the stars of the show – and has both the gravitas and charisma necessary to anchor a series.

With his silver hair and slightly gravelly baritone, Millen bears a slightly more than passing resemblance to chef and TV personality Anthony Bourdain.

And given that he claims to have launched Greenhouse on a $200,000 budget – and the business is now worth more than $20 million – he’s also speaking from experience.

He and his fellow co-creators are also speaking from experience when they say this is a proven television formula that will work for cannabis stores just fine.

Proven formula applied to cannabis industry

Just look at the string of success stories. Gordon Ramsay’s “Kitchen Nightmares” ran for seven seasons. Then there was “Hotel Rescue” and “Bar Rescue.”

Millen is a particular fan of the latter, since he worked on it. As did veteran executive Kevin Kay, whose credits include the Nickelodeon hit “SpongeBob SquarePants,” and Todd Nelson, whose resume is full of reality TV hits like “Master Chef.”

“We know it works,” Kay said. “We know people care about these businesses and want to see them succeed.”

To prove the concept, Kay, Nelson and Millen found a struggling store in the Denver area. The owners were $400,000 in the hole, and aesthetically speaking, they seemed stuck there.

The store “looked like a stoner’s bedroom meets a beat-up Mexican restaurant,” Nelson said.

Along the way, the crew takes the store owners (and viewers) on a field trip to other successful cannabis ventures, where trusted and familiar names explain – with the authority granted by experience – what worked for them and how others could replicate it.

“CannaBiz Rescue” includes these segments with an eye toward explaining how the industry works – and the continued project of demystifying the plant and the people involved with it for a mass audience.

“It’s not a weed show,” he said. “It’s a show for the general public.”

Reality television corrective

Cannabiz Rescue will also attempt to correct misunderstandings promoted by earlier attempts at a marijuana-themed reality show.

Millen had harsh words for one predecessor in particular that, despite being produced by Jimmy Kimmel and streaming on Hulu, set the entire movement back in his opinion.

The store, ostensibly about a Hollywood dispensary (that’s real), opens with a familiar trope: a bumbling bandanna-wearing stoner, smoking a joint even in the shower, going to his first job at a dispensary.

“It made us (the industry) look like a bunch of stoner goofballs,” Millen said. “It infuriated me. That’s not me.”

Millen has ambitious goals. He’d like to see national legalization. He’d like to see major brands launch.

And this platform is as good a launchpad as any.

“The best way to change people’s minds is the power of television,” he said.

Chris Roberts can be reached at chris.roberts@mjbizdaily.com.