Big Weed (13 page)

9

Family: Hageseth; Genus:
Cannabis

My wife and I were meeting my oldest daughter's teacher for the first time on the night of parent–teacher conferences. The teacher leaned forward and said in a low voice: “Before we get started, do you mind my asking you a question? What do each of you do for a living?”

I could see where this was going.

My wife fidgeted. She was nervous. She had not yet come to terms with my business.

“It's just . . .” The teacher paused. “Your daughter said the other day in class that her daddy grows plants. When I asked her what kind of plants her daddy grew . . . well . . . she said . . .
marijuana.
”

“That is true,” I said. “I'm in the medical marijuana business. I grow in a large warehouse and do it legally. I don't grow at home.”

Just because you know what you do for a living doesn't mean everyone around you can explain it. I was beginning to realize that the people closest to me—my family—were struggling with a variety of conflicting feelings about my line of work.

I thought I'd prepared well for this. When I first got into the cannabis industry, I made an effort to read as much as I could about
marijuana. I wanted to be as educated as possible. I knew there would be questions from family members. A few in my family are deeply religious. After a lifetime of associating marijuana with sin, they might be troubled by my new venture. So I read up, I studied, I thought hard about my reasons for choosing this life. I wanted to be able to answer their questions in a loving and considered way.

Of course, that started with my children. I wanted them to grow up as healthy, responsible members of society. When they asked about my work, I gave it to them straight. Marijuana was a product that adults used to relax, not unlike alcohol and something like cigarettes. Yes, our state had legalized marijuana as medicine, but at the time we were speaking, it was available for sale only to adults over twenty-one who had demonstrated medical need.

I also watched what sort of language I used. I didn't want them to hear a lot of limiting messages when they were growing up.
Don't do this. Don't do that. Watch out for that.
That sort of language only made kids afraid of the world. I'd prefer that they knew what
all
these vices were capable of doing to people, so they'd be better able to make good choices.

For example, I hoped that I'd be able to raise daughters who were strong enough to say no to drugs like cocaine or heroin. I hoped that those substances would strike them as highly addictive, dangerous, and capable of killing them via overdose.

There are certainly issues surrounding marijuana use and adolescents. There's evidence, for example, that marijuana may impair growing minds and bodies. But if one of my daughters was moved to experiment with marijuana someday, I think I'd be thankful that she wasn't getting addicted to nicotine or messing with alcohol. Teens on alcohol have just enough courage and bravado to do something stupid. In less than an hour, they're capable of making a string of bad decisions that will haunt them for the rest of their lives. I'm not denying that there have been stoned adolescents and adults who have, say, gotten behind the wheel of a car. But if your kid is toking in the basement
with friends, some of the most
likely
outcomes are that they will watch a ton of movies on Netflix, have a mind-blowing realization, laugh a lot, order in a pizza, clean their entire room, or pass out on the couch.

I think parents who have some experience with marijuana understand this. I get in these kinds of exuberant arguments with people all the time. “Look,” I recently told a group of moms, “say your kids are out for the night. They have a bottle of Jack Daniel's or a bag of weed, and they are going to use one of them. Which would you rather have them do?”

Hands down, the moms all said marijuana.

I don't think that kind of response would have been possible in the 1930s, during the days of
Reefer Madness.
Parents back then would not have had enough personal experience with the drug to know that there was a difference. They would have bought the government-backed party line that marijuana would drive their children insane and compel them to commit murder.

I suppose we can all be grateful that so many adults these days have smoked marijuana. It's making them better parents. Not necessarily more tolerant, mind you, just more educated and realistic.

As you may have guessed from our talk with my daughter's teacher, my wife was still uncomfortable with the notion of her husband being in the marijuana business. She was intrigued that the law was changing. She was interested in how such a decision would impact her home state. But she didn't want her husband in the business, let alone smoking the stuff. She'd grown up in a fairly conservative Colorado family.

“I am not telling my parents what you're doing,” she told me early on. “It'll just upset them.”

Well, I expected that. But as the months passed and I was struggling with those first few harvests, I lost track of time on the home front. It was getting awfully close to the holidays.

“Look,” I said, “you have to tell them
something.
We're going to see them for Christmas!”

Well, she did. The news went over like a lead balloon. A big, ol' marijuana-tainted lead balloon. The holidays were tense. And by the following Easter, her crusty dad got up the nerve to ask me a single question during our time together. “So—how's that pot thing going?”

Interestingly, my experience with my own parents was remarkably different. I suppose you could say that we have become a closer family because of marijuana.

How is that possible? Well, I said earlier that the story of marijuana policy in this country is a little like the personal evolution of a human being. We form opinions, we enact rigid policies, we suffer consequences because of those policies, and we relent and grow to a higher state of being. I'd argue that both of my parents went through those phases.

My dad, for example, recently had a life-changing experience. A friend of his in South Dakota had a grandson who suffered from a lifetime of intractable seizures. This grandfather reached out to my dad after seeing Dr. Sanjay Gupta's report on CNN that touted the medical aspects of marijuana and focused on a little girl with symptoms similar to those of his grandson. My dad suggested his friend begin reading up on cannibidiol (CBD) tinctures to see if this marijuana-derived product might be worth trying on the friend's grandson.

Most people never look past tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the psychoactive compound in marijuana that gives humans that high. But THC belongs to a larger family of compounds found in marijuana called cannabinoids. One of the other compounds is CBD, and it has become recognized in recent years for its ability to treat numerous conditions, including pediatric epilepsy. There's no high associated with taking CBD. It's usually administered as an oral liquid formulation.

As I write this, a drug made with this compound has been granted orphan drug status with the Food and Drug Administration and
is slated for clinical trials. “Orphan diseases” are ones that affect an extremely small percentage of the human population, so small that it often doesn't pay for a drug company to invest its resources in developing treatments for them. One incentive the U.S. government offers drug companies is the ability to fast-track the development of these designated “orphan drugs.”

In the South Dakota case, the grandfather was able to research CBD and talk it over with his family. They decided to buy some CBD and try it out on the boy. The child, who had had fifteen to twenty seizures every day since doctors discovered a tumor in his brain when he was only three, began taking the CBD tincture. After ten days of taking the tincture, the grandson went seven days without having a single seizure. Those were the first seizure-free days in his young life. After a month of taking the tincture, the absence of seizures allowed the grandson to resume a regular life. As I write this, he is getting ready to begin home schooling for the first time.

Emboldened by his friend's story, my father began immersing himself more enthusiastically in the medical literature surrounding marijuana.

Because of my business experience, I'm often asked for financial advice by friends and family. Shortly after I got started in the marijuana business, I got an urgent call from a longtime friend that I'll call Bruce. “Can I come by to talk with you? It's kind of important.”

“Sure,” I said. We made a date, and I put it out of my mind.

He showed up a few days later, and I could tell when he came in the door that he was agitated. Papers tucked under his arm. Concern in his eyes. “Is there someplace private we can talk? I think we're going to need a computer.”

I led him into my office and closed the door. He started opening his files and laying sheets of paper on my desk. Tons of financials from his current living situation. His bank statements. His house. The car. Everything.

“Are you having money problems?”

“I think so,” he said with a sigh.

We started working on a spreadsheet together, and as we did, he loosened up a little and started to talk.

“All we need is about $3,000 a month,” he said, “if we sell the house to live comfortably in a senior community. But how long can we make it last at that expense?”

“You're gonna move?”

“I don't have a choice, I don't think. Look at the numbers.”

I looked and fiddled and clicked around. I love spreadsheets. They're the quickest way I know of drilling down to the facts of any financial situation. As the rows and columns click into place with every little change you make, you start internalizing the numbers, seeing patterns, and you can get a sense which numbers are the most critical.

“You know,” I said, “you're barely seventy and you guys are still in good health. I don't think you need to move out.”

“It's just tough coming up with the money.”

I clicked around. Sifted through his papers.

“You're telling me you need $3,000 a month,” I said, “but what I'm seeing is, if you can come up with
$3,600
a month, you can keep the car and the house and you don't have to move anywhere. Your life stays exactly the same.”

“Sounds fine, but where's the money coming from?”

At the time he had Social Security, a retirement account that had been decimated by the market crash, and a part-time job that he enjoyed.

It was obvious to me what he should do. But I knew it would be a struggle to get him to accept it.

“You know what I do for a living, right?”

“Marijuana. I know. What's that got to do with anything?”

I smiled. “Have you ever considered growing pot?”

His face changed. He looked disgusted. His head was shaking even before I could get another word out.

“Hear me out.”