Biography
Robert Callaghan has spent thirteen years building medical cannabis clinics across four countries. He founded Medical Marijuana Services in Canada in 2013, when the sector was barely regulated. A pioneer of cannabis telemedicine, he ran one of the first clinics in Canada to deliver cannabis consultations remotely, years before telehealth became routine, and it went on to serve patients across the country. He led the company until its sale in 2024.
He is one of the original architects of the medical cannabis clinic model: the intake, physician training, compliance and record-keeping systems he built in Canada in 2013 became the template his teams carried into Australia and the United Kingdom. He built Medical Cannabis Services Australia (2017–2022) and Medical Cannabis Services UK (2019–2021), adapting the same telehealth model to two further regulatory regimes. Much of that work sat in the unglamorous part of the problem: licensing and compliance with Health Canada and its overseas equivalents, physician training, supply agreements with licensed producers, and the record-keeping that keeps a clinic lawful.
Cura Vida Cannabis Clinics is a new venture rather than a continuation of any of it. He incorporated the company in Costa Rica in 2023 and opened it to patients in January 2026, building it around Costa Rican law and the country’s own supply chain. In Costa Rica he has put that experience behind the profession itself: Cura Vida provided foundational support to MEDEC-CR, the country’s first association of medical cannabis physicians, and the clinic’s doctors are MEDEC-CR certified. The mission is to deliver respectful, affordable, and seamless patient care through technology, expert practitioners, and access to high-quality medicinal cannabis products.
He studied at the University of Toronto and lives in Escazú, San José.
