Sensi Magazine - Boston (September 2019)

BOSTON

THE NEW NORMAL

HIGHER EDUCATION Colleges add cannabis to the curriculum

#NEWPEM

Inside the Salem museum’s $125 million expansion

{plus} 10 THINGS EMPLOYERS WISH

YOU’D STOP DOING

9.2019

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ISSUE 9 // VOLUME 2 // 9.2019

FEATURES 26

SP EC IAL R EP OR T

Higher Ed

A college degree in cannabis is a real thing. And it’s a big sign the industry is legitimate.

34 Pot in Pans

Why the history of eating cannabis matters.

34

NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM Celebrate the opening of PEM’s new wing this month

WHET YOUR APPETITE Dig into an excerpt of Sensi contributing editor’s delicious new book

18 every issue 9 Editor’s Note 11 The Buzz 18 LifeStyle #NEWPEM

50 HereWeGo

CONTINUING ED

Sensi magazine is published monthly by Sensi Media Group LLC. © 2019 SENSI MEDIA GROUP LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

sensimag.com SEPTEMBER 2019 7

sensi magazine ISSUE 9 / VOLUME 2 / 9.2019

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ARTS & ADVISORY BOARD Beantown Greentown // CULTIVATION Boston Gardener // GARDENING SUPPLY Boston Green Health //

editor’s

NOTE

CULTURE

Welcome to September,

everyone. Move-in is

CONSUMER AND COMMUNITY EMPOWERMENT

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higher education—among the best in the country, no doubt.

Which is why the cover story this month focuses on “higher learning”—schools across the country are adding cannabis courses and degrees to the curriculum to meet the growing demand from industry employers who have jobs to fill but no qualified candidates to hire. Give it a few years, and the first students with four-year undergraduate degrees in the subject will be graduating. In the meantime, wherever you matriculate, there are options. That includes if you matriculate nowhere but your couch— institutions like the University of Vermont offer online programs.

Speaking of area institutions, this month, Peabody Essex Museum’s $125 million expansion project is ready to make its public debut, and when it does, PEM will become one of the largest art museums on the continent—and definitely the largest one not in an urban center. Not that it’s very far from the city, just a half-hour or so, and it’s a drive you should take. We’ve got details about the Salem landmark’s long history, its new wing, and the forthcoming exhibitions and fresh galleries worthy of your cultural attention.

September is our annual arts & culture issue—a celebration of acquired tastes and refined activities. Summer is on its last legs, football is back in season (go Tom go), the leaves up north are getting ready to go out in a burst of color that calls to anyone with a car and a Sunday afternoon to spare. Take the time to go explore this month. Learn something new. Appreciate the art that surrounds us in this city—where there are more cultural districts than in any other metropolis. There’s probably one within walking distance of you right now. The sun’s probably out, the weather this time of year is stellar. Go explore.

Surround yourself with the fruits of creative labors and you’ll elevate your state of mind, find new sources of inspiration. Your life is a work of art in progress. Now’s a good time to work on it.

Tess Woods Public Relations // PUBLIC RELATIONS Valiant Group, LLC //

COMMERCIAL DEVELOPMENT

Stephanie Wilson E D I TO R I N C H I E F SENSI MAGAZINE

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Culture Adjustment It’s a turbulent time in America. In the second half of this decade, we—our collective society— have gone off the rails. Mass shootings, kids in cages, and all the other “how is this real life” news items piling up in our unread notifications, distracting us with sheer abundance. We lost sight of where we are, forgot where we were going. Not sure if that place even exists anymore—or if we want it to.

The old American Dream of 2.5 kids and a golden retriever, a house in the suburbs, a stable 9–5 job at the same company you’ll retire from in 30 years when you’re a decade or so away from hitting the average American lifespan: I’d pray to wake up screaming from that nightmare. I’d bet most of my millennial brethren would. But not that long ago, that would have been a life well-lived.

Culture evolves. The idea of a universal American Dream is long gone, and the pressure to conform left with it. With no goalposts to guide us, it can feel like everything is chaos. But from a different perspective, it feels like freedom.

It’s a blank slate to shape our futures. To affect change by creating what we want to see.

Chuck Palahniuk, best-selling author of 17 works of fiction but best known for Fight Club, puts it better than I can: “The first step—especially for young people with energy and drive and talent, but not money— the first step to controlling your world is to control your culture. To model and demonstrate the kind of world you demand to live in.

To write the books. Make the music. Shoot the films. Paint the art.”

And take the time to appreciate what others are creating. Go to museums and galleries, attend shows, put in your headphones and dance down the street. Read something every single day.

Start by picking up Palahniuk’s new book, Adjustment Day, a dark comedy in which “geriatric politicians bring the nation to the brink of a third world war to control the burgeoning population of young males, while working-class men dream of burying the elites.” Or as one review put it: “A dystopian nightmare that takes all the fractures of our modern society and escalates them to a perverted climax.” Biting satire or visionary prediction? Time will tell.

–Stephanie Wilson sensimag.com SEPTEMBER 2019 11

Calendar Highlight

Le Dîner en Blanc brings its magic back to Boston. // Sept. 7 // BOSTON.DINERENBLANC.COM The concept: a glamorous picnic at a secret location revealed to participants just before its time to gather in one of the city’s stunning public spaces with thousands of others dressed in all white for a shared meal and glamorous revelry. Participating in the global phenomena takes effort.

You can’t just buy a ticket; you have to be a member or sponsored by a member, or hit the waiting list. Once you sign up, participation is expected—the organizers try to say it’s “mandatory” but what are they going to do if you opt to stay home despite signing the “rain or shine” waiver. And it’s elaborate: must-bring items include a table and two white chairs; a picnic basket with a white tablecloth and napkins, gourmet meal items, cutlery, dishes, glasses.

Optional: white or champagne. Prohibited: Beer and other types of alcohol. When you arrive, you set up your table but you can’t sit until every table in your row is ready.

The reward for all the effort: a glamorous evening with French high society roots that borders on spectacle.

“Magical” is one word past participants throw around with abandon when asked about the evening’s vibe. It’s an experience unlike any other, and if you want in on it and you have a white outfit ready to go, register now and tag @SENSIMAGAZINE in your Insta posts later.

–SW

Mass Culture By The Numbers $2.3 billion: Economic impact of culture in MA. 73,000: Full-time jobs supported by cultural nonprofits.

46: Cultural Districts in MA—more than any other state.

2,500: Volunteers serving on 329 local cultural councils—the most extensive grass-roots cultural funding network in America.

48,600: Public events offered each year by cultural organizations.

75: Percentage of MA residents who participate in at least one cultural event each month.

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Be part of that 75% statistic this month. Spend a day wandering through one of the city’s official cultural districts. Let your mind wander as you do the same in the Literary District. Walk past the homes of Robert Frost, Louisa May Alcott, Henry James, Nathaniel Hawthorn, Sylvia Plath, John Updike, and other luminary authors who once lived here. And that’s just scratching the surface of the highlights of the walking tour. Visit BOSTONDISTRICT.ORG for more.

Stats provided by Mass Cultural Council.

–SW

Concentrated Freedom

This month, the 30th-annual Boston Freedom Rally returns to the Boston Common the third weekend in September. This time around, all the happenings go down in one eight-hour block packed with cannabis education, civil disobedience, speakers, music, and culture, with a goal to normalize cannabis in the Commonwealth. If you’re thinking, “But…it’s legal now, why are we still holding rallies?” consider this: Post-prohibition, the rally speaks to the stigma that still stands around cannabis consumption, who gets to sell it, and who still gets arrested for it. The Boston Globe reported in the spring that, in Boston, while black people made up 22 percent of the city’s population, they accounted for 66 percent of marijuana possession cases from 2000 through 2018.

Brought to us by MassCann and NORML, the rally calls cannabis activists, enthusiasts, and fanatics from around the country to the Hub for its annual celebration. What started as a one-day event expanded in recent years into a weekend-long melee of epic proportion. But alas, larger crowds bring larger problems. After receiving complaints of noise, trash, and damage to the city’s historic park following the 2018 three-day gathering, the city opted to issue the organizers a more limited permit for the 2019 event, which goes down on September 21, noon to 8 p.m.

Instead of a marathon session, it’s a quick hit. Freedom Rally concentrate.

Choose whatever analogy works for you. And then choose to be there.

–SW Sept. 21 // Noon to 8 p.m. // Boston Common // MASSCANN.ORG

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sensimag.com SEPTEMBER 2019 17

{aroundtown }

by S T E P H A N I E W I L S O N

#NEWPEM Inside the $125 million expansion project at Peabody Essex Museum, opening this month in Salem.

It started centuries ago—in the 1700s, in fact, when

The society members began amassing a diverse col-

Salem captains and supercargoes who had sailed beyond

lection of artifacts from Asia, Africa, Oceana, India, and

either the Cape of Good Hope or Cape Horn founded the

other such places, bringing them back to Salem. And they

East India Marine Society. These seafaring individuals

brought them back to Salem, in Massachusetts’s Essex

procured curio from around the globe during their voy-

County. By 1825, the society moved into its own build-

ages, bringing them back to Massachusetts where they created a “cabinet of natural and artificial curiosities” to show off the wares. In modern parlance: they started a museum with art and culture souvenirs they collected while sailing the world.

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PHOTO BY AISLINN WEIDELE, ENNEAD ARCHITECTS

ing, East India Marine Hall, putting the objects on dis-

And it’s grown from there. Today, it includes some 1.8

play in cases—the same cases you can see in the hall

million works spanning 12,000 years of human creativity.

today, still showcasing some of the very first things the

Plus Yin Yu Tang, the only complete Qing Dynasty house

forward-thinking culture-appreciating seafarers brought

outside of China. Oh, and a full-time neuroscientist on

to the New World, back when it was still so very “new.”

staff. Which is worthy of its own article, but it’s not the

(Read: new to Europeans.)

focus of this one. It’s just an anecdotal example of the in-

That was almost a century ago, and a lot’s happened

stitution’s leading edge mission to curate not just art but

since. Long story short: two local Essex Country cultural

information and insight, and to showcase it in a way that

institutions—the historical society and the natural histo-

facilitates cultural connection and enhanced understand-

ry one—merged, consolidating collections and names to

ing of the world and of the self.

become the Essex Institute. The East India Marine Society

Sounds heady. But it’s not why you’re reading about the

became the Peabody Academy of Science, named for its

museum this particular issue. This month, the big news is

benefactor George Peabody. Later, it went with the Pea-

that PEM’s $125 million new wing opens to the public late

body Museum of Salem, focusing on collecting internation-

September. The gallery expansion project adds 40,000

al art and culture. Then in 1992, the Essex Institute merged

square feet to the museum, 15,000 of which is gallery

with the Peabody Museum to become Peabody Essex Mu-

space with new installations, a light-filled atrium, and a

seum (PEM), a consolidation that resulted in one mega col-

5,000-square-foot garden designed by Nelson Byrd Woltz

lection: 84,000 works of art and culture—artworks, books,

Landscape Architects. The massive undertaking bumps

manuscripts, documents, and historic buildings.

PEM up to more than 100,000 square feet—making it

sensimag.com SEPTEMBER 2019 19

PHOTOGRAPHY BY KATHY TARANTOLA.

Ewer, ca. 1580-1620. Mother of pearl, brass. Museum purchase.

Museum of Natural History, Rose Center for Earth and Space. Carnegie Hall, Judy and Arthur Zankel Hall. William J. Clinton Presidential Center. Just a sampling of Ennead’s notable projects spanning the globe.

Which should give you some perspective about how huge the #newPEM is—not just locally or even nationally but globally. Not that worldwide recognition is the goal of the new wing, as PEM executive director and CEO Dan Monroe told Architectural Digest during a preview of the new space this summer: “We have never believed that new buildings are the answer to transforming museums.” They are the one of the largest art museums on the continent.

The expansion is the undertaking of Ennead Architects,

answer, however, to the question of where to exhibit a collection that’s outgrown its previously existing space.

a New York firm specializing in “transformative architec-

Fun fact: the original space, East India Marine Hall, was

ture for institutions in the public realm.” Translation: The

dedicated by President John Quincy Adams in 1825. So

Shanghai Planetarium. The Standard, High Line. American

it’s always had some national significance. Today, that’s

BELOW: Detail from artist Vanessa Platacis installation, Taking Place.

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PHOTOGRAPHY BY KATHY TARANTOLA © PEABODY ESSEX MUSEUM

ASIAN EXPORT ART GALLERY FROM LEFT: Detail of Indian artistm candelabra, carved late 1790s. Ivory. Museum purchase. © Peabody Essex Museum.

recognized with the National Historic Landmark designation, which honors its locally sourced Chelmsford granite exterior. The new wing is connected to original hall, both physically (linking to existing galleries) and conceptually, as Ennead focused on ensuring continuity in designs. One way they did so is by sourcing granite from the same quarry that provided the stone facade in 1825.

This month, PEM unveils its new wing and galleries, installations, and collection-based art experiences. On the first floor, the Maritime Art and History gallery “frames the sea as an enduring source of opportunity as well as peril, a force that inspires creativity and innovation, and encourages engagement with the wider world,” in museum parlance. Think: 17th-century Maori paddle. A candlestick from 1803, when Rhode Island native James Drown carved notches in the wax to mark the long days.

The second floor is home to the Asian Export Art collection focussing on cross-cultural exchange as a catalyst for creativity, illuminating the complexities of globalism as an age-old dynamic. The installation also examines the effect of the opium trade and how it contributed to today’s opioid crisis.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY BOB PACKERT © PEABODY ESSEX MUSEUM

On the third floor, PEM’s Fashion & Design gallery “invites visitors to consider that we are designing creatures who continually manipulate, respond to, and mold our changing world.” Prominent fashion icon Iris Apfel—artist, designer, model—has bestowed complete ensembles and hundreds of separates from her and her late husband’s wardrobe, a selection of which comprises the Rare Bird of Fashion collection celebrating Apfel’s inventive styling traits.

Elsewhere in the museum, two contemporary artists have created original artworks responding to PEM’s collection. Vanessa Platacis is the creative force behind Taking Place, a landscape of paintings created with 210 canvas stencils—all drawn and cut by hand. For the site-specific Figurehead 2.0 exhibit, Scottish visual artist Charles Sandison creates an immersive digital environment with a responsive code based on patterns observed in nature.

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PROTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHY BY WILLAMAIN SOMMA, EXHIBITION PHOTOGRAPHY BY WALTER SILVER. © PEABODY ESSEX MUSEUM.

Ostritch in the Rare Bird of Fashion: The Irreverent Iris Apfel exhibition. / INSET: Iris Apfel portrait 2009

22 SEPTEMBER 2019 Boston

In total, the museum is set to open 13 new gallery installations and exhibitions by the end of this month, with a whole lot more to come over the next few years, including a Meditation Gallery and a new gallery reinterpreting the 200-year-old Yin Yu Tang house from China’s Huizou region, brought to Salem and reconstructed on PEM grounds.

But before all that, PEM will celebrate the completion of this component of its $650 million Connect Campaign. The annual PEM Gala & Art Party kicks off the festivities on September 21, the gala and auction portion of the evening is sold out, but the Art Party is not, and tickets are remarkably reasonably priced for such a lavish, landmark occasion. Non-members: $175, and that includes all the gourmet bites and drink you’ll need to fuel your explorations and art experiences.

The museum opens to the public September 29, and admission is free that day. So if crowds aren’t your thing, maybe hold off a few weeks. Whenever you do go, you’ll find an art institution that’s among the world’s most dynamic and progressive—not to mention is the world’s largest art museum destinations located outside a major urban center. But not too far—it’s just 30 minutes or so. Make the trip.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY BOB PACKERT © PEABODY ESSEX MUSEUM

Install of Judith Lowry painting “Shopping” in new wing.

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Y N O M E R E AWA R D C FEATURED AT S ' N N A C S S MA L 3 0 T H A N N UA M O D E E R F B O S TO N R A L LY T 2019 S 1 2 R E B M E T P SE

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SPEC IAL REPORT

Higher Education A college degree in cannabis is a real thing.

And it’s a big sign the industry is legitimate.

by S T E P H A N I E W I L S O N

26 SEPTEMBER 2019 Boston

Full disclosure: WHEN I WAS GETTING MY DEGREE IN JOURNALISM FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS, AMHERST, I NEVER ONCE IMAGINED THAT I’D PUT IT TO USE ONE DAY IN THE LEGAL CANNABIS INDUSTRY. ALTHOUGH, TECHNICALLY, I’M NOT IN THAT INDUSTRY TODAY. As the editor in chief of this magazine, I oversee a team

job market for the cannabis industry. The research found

of editors making a series of city lifestyle magazines

that between December 2017 and December 2018, the

covering markets across the country. Those magazines,

number of job listings increased by 76 percent, covering

like the one you’re reading now, appeal to advertisers in

highly diverse roles, from marketing to retail to research

the cannabis industry—companies eager to reach you,

to agriculture to technology, logistics, and law. It con-

dear reader, and introduce you to their newly legal and

cludes that “workers with higher education and skills in

therefore probably newly launched brand.

fields as varied as marketing, horticulture, and logistics

But technically, I don’t work in cannabis. My job is

will only be more desirable as the industry grows.”

indirectly related, my company ancillary. But it’s still

Even now, those skills are in high demand. Cannabis

part of a growing stat, a field that just a few years ago

industry employers struggle to find qualified applicants

didn’t exist but now is the fastest growing industry in

to fill specific roles that require specialized knowledge—

the US. There are more than 211,000 Americans working

broad-based understanding and highly specific skills.

There are now more legal cannabis industry workers than dental hygienists in the United States. full-time in the booming industry, directly employed in

Reacting to that employer demand, schools in the US

cannabis. When ancillary jobs such as mine are taken

are stepping up, introducing cannabis curriculum to

into account, that becomes 296,000.

help prepare students to enter the $14-billion-and-rising

That means in the US there are now more legal can-

global industry as trained professionals. From certifi-

nabis industry workers than dental hygienists. Than

cate programs to master’s degrees, with everything in

brewery workers (69,000) and coal miners (52,000) and

between, higher learning is here.

textile manufacturers (112,000). These figures come from

The first four-year undergraduate degree dedicated to

a March 2019 special report by cannabis website Leafly

teaching students about the cannabis industry was intro-

with consultancy Whitney Economics, which looked at

duced fall 2017 at Northern Michigan University, under

the stats the US Bureau of Labor Statistics won’t touch,

the innocuously titled Medicinal Plant Chemistry. Derek

given that cannabis is still illegal on a federal level. But

Hall, a spokesperson for NMU, says Professor Brandon

that isn’t stopping it from booming growth, decreased

Canfield suggested the idea for a medicinal plant chem-

stigma, and skyrocketing interest from all sides.

istry degree program after attending a conference. “He

As of September 2019, 11 states and Washington, DC have

came back thinking it was a place for us to step in. On

legalized cannabis for adult-use, and 34 more have legalized

the one side, you have the growers, and on the other side

medical use in some capacity. Legal cannabis sales in 2018

you have the users. In between, you have a chemistry lab

topped $10.8 billion. The job market is heating up, and the

measuring compounds—how much and what is being

demand for educated employees grows higher every day.

used. Those are the people we are interested in.”

It’s a wide-ranging industry, and there are a lot of career

The degree program offers two different tracks: bio-an-

paths one could take within it. Beyond the obvious—dis-

alytical and entrepreneurial. The program description

pensary manager, budtender, grower, trimmer—there are

mentions that the additional focus means graduates will

a ton of opportunities in the field. Career website Glass-

not only be qualified to perform the instrumental analy-

door released a report earlier this year on the state of the

sis in a laboratory, but “will also be empowered to build sensimag.com SEPTEMBER 2019 27

28 SEPTEMBER 2019 Boston

their own testing laboratory, dispensary, and growing

up for the program in the fall of 2017, when it opened

operation from the ground up.”

to grads and undergrads. A year later, there were 225.

When the school announced the program, it wasn’t ex-

“We’re pulling in students from all over the country.”

pecting much interest, but it proved to be quite a viral

Minot State in North Dakota introduced a similar pro-

topic. Hall says a lot of people were looking for a cre-

gram this year, making it only the second college to offer

dential to help them get into the cannabis industry. “We

a four-year degree program specializing in cannabis. In

fielded a ton of calls from people who were serious about

the Rocky Mountain region, Colorado State University,

it. One interesting thing is we had a lot of students who

Pueblo, offers a minor in Cannabis Studies, with courses

said, ‘My parents suggested it.’ A lot of others said they

focused on cannabis and its social, legal, historical, po-

knew people who had benefited from the medicine.”

litical, and health-related impact on society. The degree

It’s a very demanding program. “The heavy chemistry

brochure mentions that “as part of a Hispanic Serving

requirements are mind-boggling. Kids who are there are

Institution, there is an emphasis on understanding and

very, very serious,” Hall says. About 20 people signed

appreciating the impact cannabis has had on the Chicano/Chicana community and other regional populations of the Southwestern United States.”

In New York, SUNY Morrisville is introducing a Cannabis Industry minor this fall semester that combines courses in agricultural science, horticulture, and business programs. It also includes hands-on instruction in cultivating cannabis plants with less than 0.3 percent THC, thanks to the school’s license to grow hemp.

In June 2019, University of Maryland announced the

“On the one side, you have the growers, and on the other side you have the users. In between, you have a chemistry lab measuring compounds…

Those are the people we are interested in.”

country’s first postgraduate program in the field, a mas-

—Derek Hall, Northern Michigan University

ational and/or medical purposes.” The university, along

ter’s of science in Cannabis Science and Therapeutics.

Associate degrees in the field are offered at Stockton University in New Jersey and at Philadelphia’s University of Sciences, where students can earn an associate degree in Cannabis Health Therapy.

Even the Ivy League is getting into the field. Cornell launches “Cannabis: Biology, Society, Industry” course this fall, with plans to introduce a master’s in cannabis next year. That program is said to have an emphasis on oral and written communication skills with media and industry stakeholders, according to reports from Quartz.

At Harvard, law students in a Cannabis Law class last spring considered “criminal law enforcement, land use, civil rights, banking, and other issues arising from the cultivation, distribution and use of marijuana for recrewith MIT, received a $9 million alumni donation this summer earmarked for independent research on the influence of cannabis on brain health and behavior.

The University of Vermont’s pharmacology course in Medical Cannabis is considered the first of its kind at a US academic institution, and the medical school is also the first to offer a professional certificate in cannabis and medicine. And it’s fully online, led by faculty from the college, geared toward teaching doctors, pharmacists, nurses, PAs—medical professionals—what wasn’t on the course lists whenever and wherever they earned their degrees. sensimag.com SEPTEMBER 2019 29

30 SEPTEMBER 2019 Boston

Cannabis courses are popping up in undergrad and grad-

To create the curriculum, Seaborn had to start from

uate programs at schools coast to coast, from UConn (Hor-

scratch. “When you teach a course, you use standard

ticulture of Cannabis: From Seed to Harvest) to UC, Davis

materials. In this area, there is no road map. You have to

(Cannabis sativa: The Plant and its Impact on People). Even

figure it out on your own.” Seaborn drew on people work-

more institutions have launched certificate programs cov-

ing in the new Colorado industry as guest speakers, and

ering a range of topics. Clark University in Worcester, MA,

found many eager to help. Business Insider reports that

introduced the country’s first certificate program in can-

the semester culminates with a field trip to Sweet Grass

nabis control regulation. University of Las Vegas runs the

Kitchen, where students tour the facility and hear from

Cannabis Academy through its continuing education divi-

management, including marketing director Jesse Burns.

sion, with classes in cannabis and the opioids epidemic, cannabis professionals, and pets and cannabis.

Burns has an MBA from the University of Colorado, Boulder. “It’s been the foundation that I’ve built my career

Professor Paul Seaborn has taught a class titled the

on,” Burns says. “The skills I acquired helped me do the

Business of Marijuana at University of Denver’s Daniels

best and become successful and achieve goals. Having

College of Business for a few years now. Seaborn says af-

that formal education helped me see the bigger picture

ter legalization in Colorado in 2012, it seemed like a good

and helped give me the confidence to make the best deci-

idea to approach the topic from an entrepreneurial point

sions.” And as the manager, he does a lot of the hiring. He

of view. He offered the first class in 2017, and it was the

is so very excited to see more qualified applicants enter

only accredited business school offering a class in can-

the field—ones with an education specific to the industry.

nabis at the time, open to undergrads and grads. “I’ve never had as many different people—alumni, staff members, parents, students—who showed interest.”

The cannabis industry needs people who have general

“A lot of students are ready,” says Seaborn. “It’s a question of universities catching up to them.”

Leland Rucker contributed reporting to this article.

business skills to help those who don’t. “A student might have a marketing or finance or accounting major, but we’re adding on to that with history and regulation, so we can get the best candidates who can hit the ground running,” says Seaborn. “It’s a steep learning curve, and the competition has gotten more fierce. It’s not guaranteed success. The bar keeps rising, and the more you can be prepared, the better.”

“It’s a steep learning curve, and the competition has gotten more fierce. The bar keeps rising, and the more you can be prepared, the better.”

—Paul Seaborn, University of Denver sensimag.com SEPTEMBER 2019 31

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POT Why the History of Eating Cannabis Matters

IN PANS

by R O BY N G R I G G S L AW R E N C E

From ancient India and Persia

TO TODAY’S EXPLOSIVE NEW MARKET, CANNABIS,

THE HOTTEST NEW GLOBAL FOOD TREND, HAS BEEN PROVIDING HUMANS WITH NUTRITION, MEDICINE, AND SOLACE —AGAINST ALL ODDS–SINCE THE EARLIEST CAVEPEOPLE DISCOVERED ITS POWERS. This is an excerpt from my book, Pot in Pans: A Histo-

alized they could control the commoners by prohibiting

ry of Eating Cannabis Food, which released earlier this

a plant that they relied on for food, fiber, medicine, and

year as part of publisher Rowman & Littlefield’s Studies

mind and mood alteration. For the hard-working class-

in Food and Gastronomy series, featuring “the best in

es, who often lived in hopeless poverty, cannabis was

food scholarship, harnessing the energy, ideas, and cre-

magical for its ability to act as both stimulant and sop-

ativity of a wide array of food writers today.”

orific and its promise of gentle relief from the drudgery and humiliations of daily life—a far cry from the sinister

We write history books, in part, so we don’t repeat our

reputation foisted upon it by centuries of propaganda.

mistakes. The history of cannabis food, rich and deep, is

We are reaching the end of a centuries-long story, born in

marred with the stains of prohibition, propaganda, and

the Mazanderan mountains in ancient Persia in the 12th cen-

persecution—abysmal mistakes we’ve only just begun to

tury and used throughout history in racist campaigns to prove

rectify. This history is a long way from being written—

that cannabis makes people violent, insane, and uncontrol-

though many like to say we’re now on the right side of

lably horny (parents, hold onto your white daughters!). The

it as centuries of fear mongering finally start to unravel.

legend of Hassan-ibn-Sabbah, the Old Man of the Mountain

Finally, but still painfully slowly, cannabis is taking its

who plied his disciples with splendid food, fine women, and a

rightful place as a unique culinary ingredient that has

hashish confection so they would assassinate his enemies—

proven through the centuries that food is medicine.

popularized in the West by explorer Marco Polo—would forev-

Locally, nationally, and globally, we’ve reached a pivot-

er associate hashish with assassins and sinister business.

al moment in the history of a plant that has been beloved

In the 1930s, during his successful drive toward canna-

by the masses, reviled by the elite, and shrouded in con-

bis prohibition, US Federal Bureau of Narcotics chairman

flict and secrecy for centuries. Cannabis has been out-

Harry J. Anslinger masterfully fomented Americans’ rac-

lawed and demonized since the powers-that-be first re-

ist and increasingly moralistic national mentality with a sensimag.com SEPTEMBER 2019 35

36 SEPTEMBER 2019 Boston

propaganda blitzkrieg that included a book and motion

remained readily available to those who wanted them. In

picture titled Marihuana: Assassin of Youth—based upon

the early and mid-1970s, several countries and US states

his discovery of the Old Man of the Mountain legend. In

decriminalized cannabis, but this attitude change was

testimony before Congress and in newspaper interviews,

short-lived, squelched by marijuana’s association with dirty

Anslinger said marijuana, a frightening “new” drug used

hippies and the counterculture. The Nixon administration

primarily by Mexicans and African Americans, could

doubled down, sending military helicopters to scorch can-

turn upstanding, middle-class kids into helpless victims

nabis farms from Orange Hill, Jamaica, to the mountains of

and raging monsters. His campaign resulted in cannabis

Colombia’s Cauca region and declaring cannabis a Schedule

being effectively outlawed through draconian taxes and

I drug with no medicinal value, alongside heroin and LSD.

regulations in the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937.

Down through the ages—through multiple prohibitions on every continent, imposed by sultans, colonialists, and a pope—cannabis had managed to somehow

You Can’t Keep a Good Plant Down For a century now, cannabis has

survive, and even thrive. But never had it faced an en-

existed in most parts of the world

emy so formidable or iron-fisted as the United States in

only because humans’ love for it

the mid-20th century. When US Treasury Secretary An-

is so great that they’re willing

drew W. Mellon appointed Anslinger and tasked him, for

to sacrifice being persecuted,

whatever reason—and speculation is rampant—to wipe

imprisoned, having their teeth

out cannabis, he intended the war to be global. Through-

pulled out, and even being put

out the rest of the 20th century and into the 21st, the

to death for cultivating and

United States used its considerable influence to force

nurturing it. The irony of prohi-

cannabis prohibition around the world, leaving people

bition, of course, is that the lucra-

in countries where it had been used and enjoyed for cen-

tive black market made it worth

turies scratching their heads in confusion—and finding

the risk and only drove breeders to

ways around the laws.

develop ever-mightier plants delivering

In Canada in the 1930s, when Royal Mounted Po-

whopping amounts of psychoactive tetrahy-

lice officers told an elderly woman they had to eradi-

drocannabinol, or THC. In the face of adversity, cannabis

cate the hemp plants she grew to

was no shrinking violet. The plant grew stronger, better,

feed her canaries, she chased

faster, and more potent—unstoppable, no matter how

them away with a broom.

much paraquat the DEA threw at it.

cannabis

If the history of cannabis proves anything, it is that you

continued to be a key

can’t keep a good plant down. A cabal of global elites is no

ingredient in the tra-

match for this one, which in its cunning evolved to provide

ditional “happy” soup

humans with nutrition, fiber, medicine, and, if you believe

served at weddings

many ethnobotanists, the ability to make huge mental and

and celebrations, just

spiritual leaps as a species. Had it not been for the latter—

In

Indonesia,

as it always had. In-

all due to the presence of that THC molecule—this would

dia managed to keep

be a boring book about a multifaceted, utilitarian plant that

on the right side of the

served humans in many different capacities for centuries.

United States while quiet-

This is not that.

ly allowing people to drink

This is a story with many layers, spanning many conti-

bhang, a traditional holy drink

nents, held together by the thread of an Islamic confection

made from cannabis. By the 1970s,

created to inspire a band of 12th-century fedayeen, which

the Netherlands had adopted a policy of tolerance to-

was ported throughout the Middle East, Central Asia, and

ward retailers and users while making cannabis cul-

beyond, invoking hilarity and hostility wherever it went.

tivation and production illegal, creating a “back door”

Inspired by this legend, Western intellectuals and literati,

problem that no one wanted to replicate.

and then the masses, discovered and enjoyed cannabis,

It was more than clear by the 1970s that the global war

hashish, and majoun (a Moroccan candy mixed with can-

on drugs was a failure. Violent cartels were ravaging South

nabis) for much of the mid-19th century and into the 1930s,

and Central America, and heroin, cocaine, and cannabis

when Anslinger shut that down. sensimag.com SEPTEMBER 2019 37

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This is the story of how Brion Gysin, an ex-patriot artist and writer in Tangier, discovered majoun, typed up a recipe, and sent it to Alice B. Toklas, an ex-pat writer in

in legal states. They can buy water-soluble cannabis-infused liquids and powders to stir into beverages or add to any recipe for immediate gratification. With such a wide range

Paris, to include in a cookbook published in New York

of culinary opportunities and resources literally at their

and London, causing a minor scandal in the mid-20th

fingertips, only the laziest or most unimaginative eaters

century and leading to a major mix-up in a major motion

are choosing the brownie.

picture that morphed majoun into the pot brownie, and

We stand on a precipice. Once criminalized, cannabis

turned the pot brownie into a Western icon forevermore.

is now being rapidly commodified, and there’s no putting

It’s the story of the rowdy band of artists, rebels, and intel-

that genie back in the bottle. Analysts predict cannabis

lectuals who partook of majoun’s charms and an activist

will be a global industry worth $57 billion by 2027—in-

who made the pot brownie a symbol of compassion.

vestment firm Cowen and Company suggests that will

Down through the ages, the cannabis plant has gath-

reach $75 billion by 2030—numbers that are respectful

ered about it a charismatic and eclectic assortment of

enough to prevent cannabis haters like US Attorney

protectors and advocates, from the Hindu lord Shiva, who

General Jeff Sessions (the 21st-century’s answer to An-

was said to sustain himself for long periods by eating

slinger) from prosecuting companies working within le-

cannabis, to Brownie Mary, whose insistence on baking

gal state infrastructures. Money talks.

cannabis-laced brownies as medicine for AIDS patients

Money’s talking. Scotts Miracle-Gro and Monsanto are

in San Francisco, despite several arrests, drew huge pub-

circling. Food conglomerates are dipping toes, preparing

lic sympathy in the 1990s and eased the way for Califor-

to jump in when—and everyone now agrees it’s a matter

nia to legalize medical marijuana in 1996.

of when—federal cannabis prohibition ends in the Unit-

And that, really, may have been the beginning of the

ed States. Hemp is legal, and a bill has been submitted to

end of the pot brownie. Several states and countries fol-

Congress to legalize psychoactive cannabis. Cannabis is

lowed California in approving cannabis for medical use,

now the second most valuable crop in the United States

and in 2012, Colorado and Washington voters took the

after corn. Chefs, foodies, and nutritionists are playing

game-changing step of legalizing all adult use. More

with this new functional food ingredient, finding cre-

states followed, then Uruguay, then Canada. Canna-

ative uses for every part of the plant, as the world’s atti-

bis-infused edibles grew into a robust and well-regulat-

tude toward cannabis normalizes.

ed industry with no room for crumbly chocolate cakes

This may sound far-fetched, particularly to peo-

that had miserable shelf lives and were impossible to

ple who live in places where cannabis remains illegal,

imprint with the new THC warning stamp some states

where citizens—inordinately, people of color—are rotting

began requiring.

in jail because of a plant. It will never be okay that (most-

In most cases, pot brownies have evolved into

ly) white men in suits rake in millions of dollars on can-

shelf-stable, easier-to-dose chocolate bars, one skew in

nabis and cannabis products while others go to jail over

a wildly popular category of cannabis-infused products

the very same plant. As we celebrate the strides we’ve

that no one saw coming in the early 2010s. In addition

made toward liberating cannabis, we must never forget

to a range of chocolate products from gourmet truffles

that this progress has been made on the backs of those

to peanut butter cups, today’s cannabis consumers can

willing to pay the price before us.

enjoy infused potato chips, gummies, hard candies, raw cacao butter, soda pop, caramel corn, coffee, tea, cookies, pies, and nuts—all readily available at cannabis stores

ROBYN GRIGGS LAWRENCE (@cannabis_kitchen) is the author of Cannabis Kitchen Cookbook and the upcoming Pot in Pans: A History of Eating Cannabis (Rowman & Littlefield, $34).

sensimag.com SEPTEMBER 2019 39

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GREEN MATTERS

Connecting the Dots: Ag Tech to Cannabis Consulting to Dispensary Operations ONE EXECUTIVE’S STORY OF JUMPING IN TO HELP AN INDUSTRY ON THE RISE MOVE UP TO THE NEXT LEVEL. When Tim Shaw, COO of MariMed Inc., saw the can-

structure. The thing that keeps us open and the lights on

nabis industry evolving, with new states legalizing

is the constant consumable needs, like nutrients and soil.”

medical cannabis through the early 2000s and his

MariMed offers total turnkey solutions for cannabis

home state of Massachusetts decriminalizing posses-

cultivators and dispensaries. The company is spreading

sion in November 2008, he wanted to get involved.

deeper into the industry, working in seven states and se-

He jumped in in 2010 when he started Green Mat-

curing three cannabis business licenses in Massachusetts.

ters, a gardening supply store with two locations—and a

It is set to open its first dispensary in December in

third on the way—in Massachusetts. “I was an engineer

Middleborough, Massachusetts, and is planning to

at Nextel in a previous life and saw this industry coming

open a 140,000-square-foot cultivation facility with over

west to east,” Shaw says. “So I thought, what can I do

1,000 hydroponic lights in New Bedford soon.

legally to get involved?”

As a business consultant, Shaw says part of his job is

He knew all the grow operations in the state would

grassroots lobbying to bring common sense to state reg-

need to buy nutrients and other consumables. “So I decid-

ulations. “Regulators have worked through a lot of the

ed I would meet new operators, find out what they need-

kinks, one of them being testing,” he says. “They had this

ed, and make some money,” he says. “And it’s not illegal.”

baloney situation where the testing labs were permitted

Working with plants is “in his blood,” Shaw says. His family comes from a long line of garden center owners,

for medical but not for adult use. It was the same process. I think it was a money-grab situation.”

growing and selling ornamentals and Christmas trees

He says he has never worked so hard in his life as he

at Van Wilgens Garden Center and Nursery in North

has in the last six years. “This industry is not for the faint of

Branford, Connecticut. “I do not have formal training or

heart,” he says. “I am an absentee father at the moment,

a college education in horticulture,” he says. “But I have

all over the place traveling.”

developed a good system of how to grow this plant.”

Looking around at the floor of the huge 2018 Marijuana

While Shaw is the CEO of Green Matters, which func-

Business Conference in Las Vegas, a show with 27,500 of-

tions as the supply arm to MariMed clients, all Green

ficial attendees, Shaw appears confident that soon all the

Matters supply chain operations are handled by his

time and effort he has put into the business will pay off. “I

wife, Lilli, a former dental assistant. “So I see things on

think the wheels are just starting to come off the ground in

the front end and the back end,” Shaw says.

this industry,” he says, gesturing to groups of hundreds of

Green Matters sells hydroponics, soil, nutrients, and everything required for a grow operation. “The stuff that

conference attendees. “There is real B2B action here now.

There is real money being made right on the floor now.”

takes up the most real estate—the big equipment like hydroponic lights and its support structure—has the least amount of margin,” he says. “Once a customer buys it, they don’t have to buy it again. They have built their infra-

For more information, visit:

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GREEN GODDESS SUPPLY

The Grow Kit As Just Another Piece Of Furniture In Your Living Room TWO MARKETERS WITH A NOSE FOR INNOVATIVE IDEAS BRING TO MARKET A SIMPLE, TROUBLE-FREE WAY OF GROWING CANNABIS FOR PERSONAL USE.

Wouldn’t it be great to have a piece of furniture in your living room growing just enough cannabis for

build a brand all set up,” Robichaud says. “I already have a team of people here.”

your own personal use? All set up and ready to go right

The Armoire was brought into the Green Goddess

out of the box? No outrageous tents, no dedicated in-

fold. “We call it furniture-inspired,” Robichaud says. “It’s

stalled pipes, no precise measuring of soil nutrients

the Goldilocks of grow systems, meaning it’s not too

and exact placement of lights?

small and not too big.”

That’s what Eric Robichaud, CEO of Massachu-

Robichaud is jazzed about his jump from interactive

setts-based Green Goddess Supply, thought when he

agency software guy to cannabis entrepreneur. “The

first laid eyes on a partner’s grow kit concept, basically

cannabis space reminded me of the early days of the

an all-inclusive grow operation that looks a bit like a

PC revolution. All of a sudden, because of the Armoire,

free-standing clothing armoire but comes with every-

I got that feeling again, and I was invigorated and in-

thing needed—except for water, seed and soil—to grow

spired. So, I sold my agency to focus exclusively on this

your own cannabis at home, plus a small camera inside

new opportunity.”

the unit to monitor growth from any Wi-Fi location.

Over the last two years, Robichaud says, he and

The biochamber system, dubbed The Armoire, was

Bitetti have continued to grow the brand with more

recently brought to market by Green Goddess Supply,

cannabis consumer accessories, in addition to bring-

a company Robichaud founded in 2015 while work-

ing the Armoire to market and working on wooden

ing in an interactive agency he opened 25 years ago.

cannabis storage solutions.

Green Goddess Supply sells vapes, metal pipes, grinders, old-school dugouts, and other accessories for the cannabis smoking consumer.

The grow kit was an idea that Robichaud’s friend,

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Vincent Bitetti, came up with after working as a cannabis grow consultant in California.

He and Robichaud, both with backgrounds in marketing, had collaborated on hundreds of products over the 25 years they have known each other. But this was something different. “For two years, I watched Vincent work on his prototypes and saw the plants he was growing,” Robichaud says. “And said, ‘Wow, I want one.’

He said ‘Yeah, that’s what everybody says.’”

By mid- to late-2016, Bitetti told Robichaud he was ready to bring the grow kit to market. They did a deal.

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{HereWeGo }

by R O BY N G R I G G S L AW R E N C E

GET TO WORK We asked some of the industry’s execs to share insight you won’t learn in any college course: What NOT to do if you want to get a job in cannabis.

GET IN IT FOR THE MONEY. “There’s a perception that

PLAY IT CASUAL by showing up for an interview wear-

we’re printing dollars in the back room and that’s going

ing flip-flops and smoking a joint. “It happens surprising-

to flow to everyone we hire,” says Wana edible company

ly often,” says dispensary owner and CEO Wanda James.

founder Nancy Whiteman. “We have to watch costs and

“Would anyone go to an interview at [Sam Adams] with

margins like any other business—perhaps more so.”

flip-flops on a beer in their hand? You wouldn’t do it. So

WRITE “LOOKING FOR WORK” OR “SEEKING OPPOR-

why would you come to us thinking, ‘They get high, they’ll

TUNITIES” AS YOUR MAIN IDENTIFIER on LinkedIn and

be cool with it’? No, I am not.”

other career networking sites. Let people know what

SHOW OFF your extensive knowledge of growing, sell-

you’re good at and be specific about what you want.

ing, or consuming cannabis. “Somebody who thinks they

POST A CANNABIS LEAF AS YOUR PHOTO on social

know everything will be difficult to train,” says Blüm dis-

profiles and/or call yourself anything resembling Dank or

pensary’s co-founder Salwa Ibrahim.

Dabby or sweet Mary Jane.

USE SLANG TERMS FOR CANNABIS. “At this point, it

CALL YOURSELF A “LIFESTYLE BRAND.” Nobody knows

should be common knowledge that the word marijuana

what that means.

PARADE YOUR PROBLEMS, personal or otherwise, in front of professionals on social media.

RELENTLESSLY STALK POTENTIAL EMPLOYERS AND MENTORS ONLINE AND IN PERSON. If and when you do meet your prey, bitterly tell them, “I emailed you.”

50 SEPTEMBER 2019 Boston

was formed as a racially motivated tactic. There’s no excuse for it in an industry built on activism against the drug war,” says Sebastian Nassau, co-founder of Cultivated Synergy cannabis co-working space in Denver.

MAKE STONER JOKES. It’s 2019. Just don’t.

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