the ESSENTIAL issue
uprooted ON THE MOVE FOR THE PLANT
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Whether searching for compassionate policy, seeking industry opportunity or fleeing persecution, Cannabis has people pulling up roots and planting new seeds all over the country. ORIGINALLY FROM Salt Lake City, Jenn Doe fled the archaic and prohibitive Cannabis laws of Utah to Washington to ply her trade as a grower and hash-maker. She thrived under the medical marijuana program and eventually won the High Times NorCal Cannabis Cup in 2014, becoming the only woman to win the award for solventless hash – made by her from plants she grew herself. The offers should have rolled in for a “The amount of money champion extract artist, and yet she felt it takes to have a stifled by the restrictions that had been business there, versus imposed on caregivers after recreational being a functioning legalization passed in 2012. caregiver business Jenn promptly moved to Massachuhere in Maine is setts for a year to grow and wash her changing significant, and it’s not flowers in peace, until the laws there policies nearly as saturated of changed as well. A business opportunity a market.” arose and once again, she wound up back in Washington working for Gavita Lighting. Upon their acquisition and the subsequent restructuring of the company, Utah to Washington she decided to again relocate – this time to the state of Maine. to Massachusetts to Why Maine? Jenn tells me, “I couldn’t do anything in the Washington to Maine Pacific Northwest without serious investment, due to the laws, or I would have to work for someone else – which I’d rather by Dan Vinkovetsky @dannydankoht not. The amount of money it takes to have a business there, versus being a functioning caregiver business here in Maine is significant, and it’s not nearly as saturated of a market.” As recreational legalization sometimes guts medical patient protections, Jenn finds the caregiver laws to be more reasonable for the mom n’ pops and small businesses, and the irony doesn’t escape her. She laughs as she tells me, “Each of my moves corresponds to the shift from medical to recreational. … All I know is I will continue to seek favorable conditions for farming and hashmaking on a boutique scale, because that’s who I am and that’s what I want to do!”
neleafmag.COM
JENN DOE
FEB. 2021
industry opportunity
GIDDYUP Oklahoma to Colorado to California to Nevada to Oklahoma
by Bobby Black @bobbyblack420
AS THE founder of Emotek, Jayson “Giddyup” Emo is the mohawked marijuana mogul behind 2012’s groundbreaking OBE-DOS closed-loop butane extraction system that immediately became the industry standard. He’s also the co-creator of live resin – the wildly popular style of concentrate that has taken the market by storm (and that his machine made possible). Giddy originally hails from Oklahoma – a state that, just a few years ago, had some of the strictest pot laws in the nation. Over the past decade, Giddyup “When you move has moved from state to state to a new state with several times, always for reasons big plans, all that shit related to Cannabis. First, in 2010, typically goes out the he moved from Oklahoma City to window when you get Longmont, Colorado with the idea there,” he chuckles. of growing weed for dispensaries, but that plan didn’t quite pan out. “When you move to a new state with big plans, all that shit typically goes out the window when you get there,” he chuckles. Building on the success of his extractors, in 2015 he launched his own brand of concentrates: Giddyup Extracts. After having established himself as an industry leader in Colorado, Giddy set out to bring his equipment and expertise to other legal states. First, he spent a few years in Nevada setting up licensing deals and selling to that market. Then in 2017, he moved to Hollywood to consult in the California market, which he described as a nightmare. In 2018, Giddy moved back to Oklahoma and established a 20,000-square-foot greenhouse grow, followed by his own dispensary named Giddy’s OKC, which opened in January 2019. According to Giddy, states that are new to legalization are a smarter move for those seeking employment in the Cannabis industry.
