Depression to multimillion-dollar business: Criminal lawyer Eidan Havas’s medicinal cannabis venture

Sydney lawyer Eidan Havas thought his life was over when he was wrongfully arrested outside court, accused of influencing a witness. Now, he’s turned his life around and founded a multimillion-dollar medicinal cannabis business.

It’s an unlikely career change, but prominent criminal lawyer Eidan Havas turned what was an “embarrassing” and “depressing” moment in his life into a multimillion-dollar medicinal cannabis business.

He’s defended numerous high-profile clients during his time as a lawyer, including social media star Jon-Bernard Kairouz and disgraced former deputy mayor Salim Mehajer.

But it was during the six months after dramatic scenes in 2019 when he was arrested leaving court and subsequently charged with influencing a witness, where his medicinal cannabis companies – The Entourage Effect and MiDispensary – were born.

The Entourage Effect is expected to double last year’s revenue and could even bring in as much as $60 million by the end of the year, while the MiDispensary clinic, including a pharmacy in Bondi Junction, is slowly opening to the public.

It will become Sydney’s first face-to-face medicinal cannabis pharmacy.

Criminal lawyer Eidan Havas and MiDispensary and The Entourage Effect chief executive Lisa Varley. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

When Mr Havas was stuck in limbo, before the criminal charge was dropped and he was paid out a “bucketload of money”, he found himself in the depths of depression and, unsurprisingly, he was uncertain about his future.

His first point of call was a visit to the doctor, and not long after, he was prescribed an antipsychotic drug used to treat major depressive disorder.

Mr Havas exclusively told The Saturday Telegraph, the medication “turned me into a zombie” where he had “sleepless nights”.

It was in his search for a better solution that he found medicinal cannabis, saying it was the beginning of his “redemption” arc.

But he ran into a problem — accessibility.

Mr Havas found most clinics weren’t profitable and how they made their money was through a closed loop system where they prescribed their own product to patients.

“I went on this adventure … I call it the plant of wellness … to try and make the whole process more streamlined,” he said.

Lawyer Eidan Havas said he had trouble accessing medicinal cannabis. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

“I wanted to create an environment where it was not only accessible for patients, but where they weren’t required to go to any specific pharmacy … or get any specific product.”

It’s how both The Entourage Effect and MiDispensary were born.

In an industry which has been taboo — and one Mr Havas accepts is littered with organisations and individuals doing the wrong thing — he believes he is standing above the rest.

He’s partnered by chief executive Lisa Varley and the pair are determined to break the stigma around medicinal cannabis, a remedy which transformed both their lives.

“Obviously I could (sell) my own products and we can make a lot more money,” Mr Havas said.

“But we’ve chosen to go down the path of patients before profits, and as a result of trying to do everything correctly, we don’t make as much as other companies.”

What that means is rather than Mr Havas creating his own product and giving those to his patients, his wholesale business streamlines all the best products available even distributing those to pharmacies across the country.

Ms Varley echoed her business partner’s sentiments about safety, declaring “we (even) turn patients away”.

“Cannabis is a contrarian indicator for schizophrenia, but you still need to know more about the history of the patient,” she said.

One of Mr Havas’s former legal clients Salim Mehajer. Picture: Bianca De Marchi

Mr Havas highlighted an ABC article which reported a NSW pharmacist, who founded a cannabis company, was banned from supplying cannabis alongside suspensions for two doctors.

It came after two men, suffering mental health conditions, were prescribed medicinal cannabis and resulted in one taking their life and the other being hospitalised with psychosis.

“After the boy passed away, two more packages of cannabis arrived at his house, that just cannot happen,” he said.

And, it means the process of being prescribed medicinal cannabis by MiDispensary isn’t a quick process with Ms Varley even declaring dosage limits were stricter than most places.

“We do a lot of checking in the beginning, we also use SafeScript because then you can see if patients are doctor shopping,” she said.

“We’re just very careful … I’m a patient myself, I have really severe rheumatoid arthritis.”

While not realising it at the time, Mr Havas declared he was “grateful for the arrest” which has given him the chance to “change my life and also millions of Australians”.

According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, about 700,000 people in the country used cannabis for medical purposes in 2022-23.

It also stated one in three of those users “had never used cannabis for any other purpose”.

While there wasn’t a significant jump in data from 2019 for medicinal cannabis users, the institute found there had been a large increase in people receiving prescriptions.

In 2019 only one in 50 people who used cannabis for medical purposes had always had it prescribed by a doctor, which changed to one in five between 2022-23.

However, the institute indicated that prescriptions were still in the minority with seven in 10 doing so without a prescription.

Among the reasons for medicinal cannabis use include treatment for chronic pain, anxiety, depression and cancer.

It’s exactly why Mr Havas and Ms Varley believe the remedy is becoming more common among older people, including those experiencing diseases like Parkinson’s which can affect people’s movement, sleep, pain and other health issues.

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Originally published as Depression to multimillion-dollar business: Criminal lawyer Eidan Havas’s medicinal cannabis venture