13 minute read
THE GREEN RUSH
Marijuana’s transformation from counterculture vice to venture-capital darling may seem to have happened overnight. But for many in the burgeoning cannabis industry, the plant’s rehabilitation has been a long time coming, and it still has a way to go. True, cannabis is now fully legal for adult recreational use in 18 states and available for medical use in 36, creating a U.S. market projected to be worth $43 billion by 2025. But in other states, users continue to be arrested and imprisoned, a reality often disproportionately affecting people of color. And cannabis remains a controlled substance under federal law, creating a host of legal and financial complexities for emerging businesses.
In this industry full of contradictions, controversies, and opportunities, a number of Williston alums are playing pivotal roles. We spoke to four: a reform leader, a former government relations liaison, a public relations professional, and a cannabis grower. While their career paths vary, they share a connection to Williston, and to a school culture that they say encouraged them to pursue their passions and gave them the courage to advocate for their beliefs, even if their choice was unconventional.
BY JONATHAN ADOLPH
FRANCIS MAGUIRE ’07
Francis Maguire ’07 inspects his first cannabis crop this past summer at his Stafford Green farm in Cheshire, Massachusetts. See page 45.
THE PIONEERING REFORMER
Sal Pace ’95 has always appreciated out-of-the-box thinking. It’s clear from his innovative work as a politician in Colorado, his side pursuits as an entrepreneur selling Grateful Dead-branded frisbees, and his recent venture as majority owner of a professional ultimate frisbee team. It’s why, he says, he was initially drawn to Williston. “I’ve never been the type of person that followed the crowd,” says Pace, who as his class treasurer found a way to hold prom on a boat on the Connecticut River. “I’ve always been a little out of the box, and Williston was a place where that was encouraged and fostered.”
That ability to see novel solutions infuses Pace’s groundbreaking work in the area of cannabis reform. Because if there is any box that our society needs to think outside of, he contends, it is the cannabis policies born of the war on drugs. “I’ve always held the belief that the war on drugs was a failure and that lives were being ruined at the hands of our government,” says Pace, now board chairman of the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP), the country’s leading advocacy, consulting, and lobbying group for cannabis reform. “Over a half-million people every year are arrested for marijuana possession in this country. There are 40,000 people today behind bars for marijuana crimes. Is this really the best use of our tax dollars? Is this really making us safer?”
Pace has devoted his career to finding better approaches. A member of the Colorado state legislature from 2009 until 2013, he helped write the country’s first regulations for the legal sale of medical marijuana. As a county commissioner in Pueblo, Colorado, from 2013 to 2019, he spearheaded the creation of the Institute of Cannabis Research at Colorado State University-Pueblo, established a college scholarship program funded with cannabis tax revenue, and worked to develop the Pueblo area into “the Napa Valley of cannabis.” Today, he continues to shape the booming industry as a thought leader and reform architect. In addition to his work with the MPP, he serves on the U.S. Cannabis Council board, HeadCount’s Cannabis Voter Project advisory board, and the Institute of Cannabis Research governing board.
Pace credits his time at Williston—in particular, his sophomore English class with Harris Thompson—with fostering his creative independence. “It’s not the typical suit-and-tie boarding school where everyone is taught to think the same way,” he explains. It was at Williston, Pace says, that he discovered and helped promote the nascent sport of ultimate, playing in the school’s first tournament. He has been supporter of the game ever since, recently becoming majority owner of a Colorado expansion franchise that will play in the American Ultimate Disc League in 2022.
With the MPP, he continues to build on the group’s impressive record of successful cannabis legalization initiatives and legislation at the state level, as well as working to shape policy at the national level. Noting that Senators Cory Booker, Ron Wyden, and Majority Leader Charles Schumer have introduced a Senate bill that would end the federal prohibition of cannabis, he is now focused on making sure national legalization is done right. “I am concerned that, depending on how legalization happens, the marijuana industry will be controlled by just a few big corporations in 10 or 20 years,” he says. The industry also needs to address social equity issues, given the disproportionate
SAL PACE ’95
impact that the war on drugs has had on communities of color. “There’s a real disconnect, when we still have folks in prison for marijuana, and other privileged folks are benefiting from legalization,” he says. “The biggest policy debate right now is how to diversify the benefits of legalization.”
Despite the challenges, Pace remains optimistic about the cannabis industry. “It’s an exciting space to be in because of the innovation,” he notes. “The out-of-the-box thinking is so substantial.” And, to Pace, that’s always been the best kind.
THE PR PROFESSIONAL
If you doubt that cannabis may have an image problem, we have a Cheech and Chong record we’d like you to hear.
Thanks to years of stoner jokes, as well as official government policy and propaganda such as Reefer Madness and “Just Say No,” the substance has a reputation that clings to even the most upscale artisanal-cannabis boutique. And yet the formidable challenges of transforming yesterday’s pot into today’s legal cannabis have not deterred Victoria Gates ’10, who serves as Director of Operations at NisonCo PR, one of the country’s first and leading cannabis public relations firms.
“The industry is still in its adolescent phase,” observes Gates, who grew up in Sunderland, Massachusetts, and started at Williston her sophomore year. “We’re still growing and still finding our stride.”
That rapid expansion has kept things interesting for
NisonCo, whose 21 remote employees are distributed throughout the country (Gates herself recently moved back to Massachusetts after four years in
Colorado), and whose clients include large retailers, cannabis-product manufacturers, CBD suppliers, and businesses in the emerging psychedelic space.
“We have a really intimate knowledge of cannabis that other firms don’t necessarily have,” she says.
Like Sal Pace, Gates notes that inclusion and social equity have emerged as key issues for the industry, “so at NisonCo, we do a lot of work with policies and then a lot of work with clients that
VICTORIA GATES ’10
SHAUN CHAPMAN ’98
are working to address those things.” Among their recent efforts: partnering with a group that helps formerly incarcerated individuals get jobs in the industry, and offering pro bono public-relations and search-engine-optimization services to smaller brands with a social mission.
Gates’ interest in changing how society views cannabis dates back to her time at Ithaca College, where as a double major in psychology and marketing she joined her campus chapter of Students for Sensible Drug Policy, looking “to channel my rebellion and my anti-authority sentiment,” she explains. The club helped pass the first Good Samaritan law in New York State, beginning with a campus policy that granted students amnesty for drug use if they needed to call 911. Members also worked to equalize the school penalties for underage students caught with alcohol or cannabis. And they formed a peer-led, harm-reduction educational series called Just Say Know. Gates became president of the campus chapter, succeeding Evan Nison, who after college launched NisonCo PR and hired Gates a few years later.
Gates credits her time at Williston with impressing upon her the importance of education, in both academic subjects and life skills. “I wasn’t like a lot of kids who go off to college and get their first taste of freedom,” she says. “I luckily got that at Williston in a safe and supportive environment. It taught me how to do what you need to do, hunker down and get the work done, and then know that you can have that play time later.” In particular, she gravitated to the hands-on work of tech theater, and discovered her love for photography in classes with Ed Hing ’77.
Today, she sees education as key to the future success of the cannabis industry as well. “The public education component is so important,” she maintains. “Everything in moderation. One of our mottoes is ‘It’s not so much about the substance as your relationship with the substance.’”
THE GOVERNMENT RELATIONS LIAISON
Shaun Chapman ’98 arrived at Williston for his junior year, transferring from a Catholic school in the Berkshires, and took to his new environment, he says in all seriousness, “like a weed.” His comment might have been accompanied by a knowing chuckle from someone with a less serious connection to the cannabis industry. Until this fall,
Chapman was Director of Government Relations for
Weedmaps, the largest technology platform serving the cannabis market, a job that put him in the position of negotiating the multibillion-dollar industry’s future with state and federal legislators and regulators. Weed jokes, it’s clear, are not his thing.
And neither, for that matter, is weed. “I’m really not much of an active consumer myself,” says Chap-
man, who went on to become Class President at Williston, active in theater, and a standout swimmer and water polo player. “Though having worked in the industry, I am much more likely now to reach for a low-dose edible than an Advil.”
What is his thing, however, is working to correct government policies and laws that no longer reflect society’s changing values. Prior to joining Weedmaps, he advocated for sustainable energy as the government relations head for Tesla’s Solar City division, and he continues advocating for change in his new job with Doma, a technology start-up working to simplify real estate transactions. At Weedmaps, founded in 2008 by two University of California, Irvine, grads, his focus was trying to reform the confusing patchwork of state and federal laws that outlaw cannabis in some states and celebrate it in others.
“Why is it that we don’t think twice about selling White Claw and tequila and beer at every corner shop, but we’re still incarcerating people—and disproportionately, so many Black and Brown people— for cannabis?” asks Chapman, who now lives in Brooklyn. “That just doesn’t sit with me.”
The confidence that one person could effect change in the world, he adds, was shaped at Williston, through courses such as We the People with Peter Gunn. “Williston gave a really strong foundational teaching to me,” he says. “It’s not about upending tradition and values. It’s about making sure that the world reflects the values that you hold, and when they don’t, and they become misaligned, don’t be afraid to challenge them.”
And in the cannabis space, the misalignments are many. For starters, cannabis’s classification as a controlled substance now prevents the kind of comprehensive federal research that could clarify its medical benefits. “Our best minds should be working on this,” argues Chapman, noting the plant’s long history of use for pain relief. “Could we have avoided the opiate crisis altogether? Why are we taking it off the table? We haven’t even tried to look there.”
Then there’s the issue of unequal access given the country’s contradictory laws. “I’m not saying that cannabis is for everyone, but if it is for someone, they should have the option to choose it, whether it’s for a headache or on a Friday night, after a hard week of work,” says Chapman. “I see it as offering an explosion of choice that can ultimately reduce harms society-wide.”
But, perhaps most important, Chapman contends that government cannabis policies should be a vehicle to create economic opportunities, particularly for communities harmed by the war on drugs. Like Sal Pace, he is concerned about the impact that large corporations could have as they move into the space, limiting these restorative efforts. “The very serious harms done to many communities need to be repaired,” he says. “Cannabis can’t fix all of it, but it’s certainly a great tool to move that forward.”
THE CANNABIS GROWER
Francis Maguire ’07 (pictured on page 41) was in his senior year at Long Island University, working toward his B.F.A. in printmaking, when the seizures started. They’d strike early in the morning, or when he was stressed, or when he hadn’t slept, and they’d leave him in a mental fog. “It’s like hitting the control-alt-delete button, or holding the power button on your laptop,” he explains. “A lot of memory gets erased.”
A three-year varsity athlete in football, hockey, and lacrosse at Williston, Maguire believes his condition was brought on by the repeated concussions he experienced playing sports, and it would take his doctors the next six years to get his epilepsy under control through medication. In the meantime, Maguire turned to a substance that proved life-changing: cannabis. “It was so compelling, like the difference between day and night,” he says. “I discovered the power that THC [the psychoactive ingredient in cannabis] has on your seizure threshold.”
After earning his degree in art, an interest he discovered at Williston, and then earning an associate’s degree in graphic design from Briarcliffe College,
Maguire was working as a freelance designer in
New York City and still suffering several seizures a month. After succumbing to one in Penn Station, he wondered if the incessant noise and stress of the city were contributing to his problems. “I had broken up with my girlfriend at that point, and I was like, why am I still here?” Needing something new, he made a bold decision to change his life.
In 2017, he moved to the Berkshires to become a cannabis grower.
“I remember bus trips out here to play different schools, specifically Berkshire Academy,” recalls Maguire, now an Adams, Massachusetts, resident and president of Stafford Green, an outdoor organic cannabis farm in nearby Cheshire that cultivated its first crop of just under 3,000 plants this summer. “I was just always fascinated with the terrain and how quiet it seemed.”
Starting any new business is challenging, growing cannabis outdoors in New England particularly so. Maguire, who has no previous experience in agriculture, has had to make sizeable investments (roughly a half-million dollars so far), navigate complicated state regulations, and win over agitated neighbors at local meetings. What has allowed him to get this far, he says, is the “endless well of support and encouragement” of his family. His father, a former engineer for the Steamship Authority on Cape Cod, is his capital investor. His mother is his secretary. A cousin is head of marketing and a company director. “It’s a very tight circle,” Maguire says.
Another factor that has eased the process was Stafford Green’s status as a minority-owned business. Maguire’s mother is Cape Verdean, allowing Maguire to qualify for financial benefits—such as the waiving of fees for business software—through the state’s Supplier Diversity Office. “We’ve been very grateful for that classification, and a lot of that is due to my parents helping out with the paperwork.”
Like the support of his family, Maguire says his time at Williston gave him the confidence to take on something unfamiliar. Arriving on campus and joining an athletic team, “it really bolstered my mental fortitude when it came to dealing with new situations and new people,” he says. And he continues to be inspired by his own personal experience with cannabis. “It has helped me in so many ways,” he says. “Obviously, everybody’s here to make money. That’s how capitalism works. But this is something that just called to me.”
