Hempy 2014!

I started 2013 with a basement full of weed and an empty bank account. I don’t know of any Seattle growers that actually got rich from growing pot this year. I think a lot of us unemployed corporate types who were laid off saw the opportunity to work for ourselves until the state could figure out what to do with the future of medical and voter approved recreational pot.

A year later, the future of medical marijuana in Washington State is still tenuous. I have personally witnessed healing in people who use cannabis as medicine and I think it’s a crime that providers have been thrown in jail for helping others. Cannabis IS medicine and we have a God-given right to have access to it.

Dispensary “donations” were my main source of income in 2013. I make half of what I used to back in my VC-funded days, but I don’t care. Money is not it. Helping people, and loving what you do on a daily basis where it’s at, man.

The meaning of life is to be of service to others.

Working with soil and flowers and light and nutrients – making my own schedule and meeting new friends in the cannabis industry was a blast. I’m glad I wasn’t a dispensary owner this year — those guys were nervous all the time. My heart goes out to the brave men and women of the medical marijuana industry. You were definitely my heroes in 2013!

This year I also created a Mary Jane in-home party line of products. I don’t think it was an accident that my daughter left her Mary Kay Cosmetic hostess starter kit behind when she left for college. In it I found the biography of their founder, Mary Kay Ash, which I read from front to back. I took what she wrote about booking parties, promotion and marketing, and put a new (and much improved) spin on the concept. I had grand visions of hiring all the topless coffee baristas in Seattle, saying these young ladies didn’t have to show their boobs to make money – just sell weed, book parties, have fun!

Just like Tupperware and the sex toy parties I held in the past, I whipped up fancy menus of cannabis-infused products that I made in my kitchen. I’ll never forget how nervous I was the first time I went to MMJ Universe in Maple Valley to scout new product ideas. I immediately fell in love with Sativa Valley body oils and bath salts, so I bought five of everything to show my new clients. Just about every week after that, I went back and supported these amazing local canna-businesses by stocking my trunk full of their herbal remedies and tasty treats to share with the world.

I booked my first parties with friends and old co-workers in January. I would change out of my sterile garden suit, strap on some heels and schlep my rolling cart to a private house to pitch hand rolled joints, loaded sodas, indica tinctures, Rick Simpson oils, and CBD lotions. Every party was unique. There were doctors and lawyers and soccer coaches, young, old, gay, straight — all wanting (needing!) and education and their fill of miraculous cannabis products.

The Seattle Times came to one of my parties in February to do a story on my business – I was so excited. But my attorney said it was still too risky, so he called and killed the story.

I continued to hold private one-on-one consultations in back bedrooms where I receive customer cash or swipe credit cards on my cell phone. Today, customers enjoy my new Seattle Seahawks playoff package with blueberry blunts and cannabis cupcakes.

My goal in 2014 is not fame and fortune — it is to educate the need for immediate cannabis law reform. Remove it from Schedule 1!  I am ready and willing to become a tax paying member of society again, along with all the other 502 applicants in Washington State. Now if someone would just let me open up a federally funded bank account, I’d be happy to do so.

Happy New Year!