Glass House Hires Ex-DEA Official to Chase Sales Beyond California

Glass House Brands (GLAS ), one of the largest cannabis cultivators in the United States, has hired a former Drug Enforcement Administration official to help it pursue something no state-licensed American operator can legally do yet: sell marijuana across state lines and export it overseas. The company said on July 27, 2026 that it retained Matt Murphy, a compliance consultant who spent 26 years at the DEA, to advise on the regulatory groundwork for interstate commerce and medical-cannabis exports under Schedule III.

The move is a bet on where federal policy is heading, not a reaction to where it stands. Rescheduling took effect in 2026 only for FDA-approved cannabis medicines and marijuana sold under state medical licenses, both of which moved to Schedule III. Adult-use cannabis, bulk biomass and hemp-derived THC all stayed in Schedule I. Nothing in that change authorized moving product between states or out of the country, and both remain barred under federal law.

Why a grower looks past its home market

Glass House operates in a punishing home market, and its financials show the strain. First-quarter results put revenue at $40.5 million, down from $44.8 million a year earlier, with gross margin falling to 25% from 45%. The company posted a net loss of $17.0 million and used $11.8 million in operating cash. Its wholesale biomass segment, nearly 60% of revenue, sold for an average of $171 per pound against a production cost of roughly $175 per pound, meaning its largest business line lost money on nearly every pound it shipped.

That math is the backdrop for the Murphy hire. California’s wholesale price collapse has compressed margins across the state, and Glass House’s scale magnifies the exposure: it expects to grow about a million pounds of biomass in 2026, a company record. Moving that volume into higher-priced markets outside California is the clearest path back to profit. CEO Kyle Kazan put it bluntly, saying the company intends to grow cannabis for sale “in whatever markets offer us the highest possible price.” To fund the wait, Glass House ended the first quarter with $27.9 million in cash and opened a $50 million at-the-market share program, and it has kept full-year revenue guidance at $235 million to $245 million while trimming its margin outlook.

What the DEA veteran brings

Murphy founded Pharma Compliance Group and, earlier, led pharmaceutical investigations at the DEA before retiring as an assistant special agent in charge in New England. The more relevant credential is the four years he spent as chief compliance officer at Khiron Life Sciences, a Colombian producer that Glass House credits with becoming the first in that country to build DEA-comparable controls and an early exporter of medical cannabis to Germany and the United Kingdom. Glass House wants to copy that template: track-and-trace and anti-diversion systems that satisfy California’s closed-loop rules while meeting the standards of markets it cannot yet enter. Those are the same cross-border ambitions now animating Europe’s cannabis dealmakers.

The company has already cleared the earlier hurdles. It applied in May 2026 to register California medical operations with the DEA under the expedited Schedule III pathway, and on June 30, 2026 it uplisted to the New York Stock Exchange, becoming the second U.S. cannabis operator to reach a senior American exchange after Trulieve. Both steps followed a restructuring into a medical-only company. Kazan has said the NYSE listing “was not possible prior to the recent reclassification of medical cannabis to Schedule III.”

The gap between ambition and authority

Preparation is not permission, and the distance is wide. Interstate shipment of cannabis stays illegal even between two states that have both legalized it, and regulators continue to enforce that line. Michigan revoked a processor’s license for sending product to Massachusetts. California, meanwhile, would have to change state law before its licensees could ship across its borders, and no such measure is currently advancing, though states including Vermont have begun preparing for interstate trade in anticipation.

Export is harder still. Cannabis can be traded internationally only for medical and scientific use under longstanding drug-control treaties, and would-be exporters must clear import-export permitting and pharmaceutical-grade manufacturing standards that often take more than a year to certify. Industry analysts have cautioned that rescheduling alone does not open foreign sales. The broader reclassification of adult-use cannabis, which could widen the domestic market, remains unresolved after a federal hearing closed in July 2026 without a decision timeline.

That unresolved backdrop is what makes the hire worth reading as a signal. By staffing for federal and international compliance before the rules exist, Glass House is treating regulatory navigation as a core function rather than paperwork, positioning to move first if the framework catches up to the ambition. For a grower losing money on every pound at home, the markets it cannot yet reach are the ones that matter most.