Big Weed

by Christian Hageseth

  Businesspeople like to brag that they’re all about taking risks. But so much of their time is spent minimizing risk. Say that young people followed the musts upon graduation. In six years’ time, where would they be? Would they be ready to take over a major corporation? Probably not. If they tried, they’d be laughed out of the office.

  You only have six years of experience! What can you possibly know?

  Contrast that experience with mine: In six years, I and my fellow ganjapreneurs have invented an industry.

  When we started, marijuana wasn’t just something corporations didn’t do; it was illegal.

  The day our product became legal for medical purposes, there were no guidelines, no rules, no musts. Everyone who was paid to govern our industry—from the regulators to the judges—had no idea how to respond. It was still just too new.

  What did we do? We got creative.

  We went out and started flying by the seats of our pants. When a question cropped up, we answered it. When banks said they couldn’t serve us, we moved to others. When those kicked us out, we improvised. When the states and feds demanded their tax money, we figured out ways to pay it. When our crops did poorly, we figured out how to boost our yields.

  Three years in, our firm won our industry’s top prize.

  Five years in, we did it again.

  Six years in, we’ll gross $20 million in sales.

  Twenty years from now, when the cannabis industry is old hat and everyone looks back, they’ll see that we were the ones who set the standard. When we started, it was a blank canvas, a block of marble, the silence of a song that had yet to be written. What we do with this opportunity will be guided by our vision, free will, and the decisions we make.

  What could be more creative than that?

  In September 2014, we closed on the 15-acre site that would become the Cannabis Ranch. The long work of making the dream a reality was solidly ahead of us, but I thought of a fun way to mark this milestone. I invited some friends and employees to come out to bless this site on which we would build a dream. Then, on our private land, we loaded a bowl of Ghost Train Haze, the best weed in the world, and had a smoke.

  I’d come a long way from the day I snuck a puff of Jake’s life-changing weed on the seventeenth hole of the Red Rocks Country Club. The day I tasted what quality marijuana could be like. Our company had taken its baby steps, faltered, fallen, but gotten right back up. Employees had come and gone. I’d bonded with some new mentors, made lots of new friends. And gained a legion of loyal customers.

  Now, on the site of a former airplane junkyard, amid this moonscape of dead weeds and cratered soil, we were going to make something beautiful. We were going to heal the land by excising the toxins from its soil. And happily, we had caught a break on the cost of the remediation. I had budgeted $800,000, but it actually would cost closer to $640,000. When the work was done, we’d be left with a giant hole in the ground. We’d use that hole to build a very deep basement level and a sturdy foundation upon which to build the rest of the building.

  Ours was going to be some basement: 50,000 square feet, about the size of a football field or a large supermarket. The hole would be excavated to a 14-foot height, allowing us to build a complete indoor grow underground. When we were done, that underground grow would become home to six hundred grow lights—a far cry from the sixteen lights I’d installed in my first grow back in 2009.

  Remember my rule of thumb: More lights equals more weed.

  The Cannabis Ranch construction called for a second grow facility just next door: a 100,000-square-foot greenhouse, double the size of the indoor grow. All together, we’d have 150,000 square feet of growing space to start.

  Now, admittedly, the greenhouse still represented a leap of faith on our part. We would be growing in part by the light of the sun for the first time ever. We would still need grow lights to make up for the seasonal nature of sunlight. We were studying different options, trying to decide which lights would be best for us. It wasn’t a complex problem, because people have been growing fruits and vegetables in greenhouses for years. But this would be the first such facility for marijuana in the world.

  Yes, I still needed about another $16 million to take the project to completion—the visitor center on top of the basement grow, the restaurant, and the amphitheater. But I wasn’t worried. I was locked in the eternal dance with investors. I already had $9 million from two institutional investors. Being able to mention such investors to would-be backers would give the newcomers confidence.

  If people asked me why I wasn’t terribly concerned about finding investors for the remainder of the project, I’d point to the model of the Cannabis Ranch I had kept in my office for the last year and a half, and I’d tell them of the vision I saw so long ago.

  I was confident that the Cannabis Ranch would ensure that Green Man Cannabis would become the largest legal marijuana company in the world. All told, when the two facilities were finished, we’d have the equivalent of three football fields in which to grow marijuana. I projected that we’d be growing 55,000 pounds of marijuana—or 27 tons—a year.

  Once I turned on the lights in those grows, I would be kick-starting the economic engine. From that moment on, investors would be nice, but if they took a while to emerge, we’d be fine. The plants in those grows would be fully capable of paying their own way.

  The Cannabis Ranch’s progress signaled a shift in our company’s future, one that mandated a new direction for me. We were now running not one but two companies. One grew and sold marijuana. The other raised capital and created business development opportunities for Green Man to grow. One company was about ensuring an even supply of product and making customers happy when they walked in the door to buy weed. The other was concerned with ensuring the growth of the Green Man brand. The latter is the bigger deal.

  Potentially, there was a conflict of interest there. When I first started down the path toward building the Cannabis Ranch, I knew that such a dilemma eventually would arise. Going forward, the Cannabis Ranch would function as the landlord to Green Man Cannabis. I wanted what was best for both companies, but it was conceivable that, in the future, what was best for the Green Man might not be the best for the Cannabis Ranch, and vice versa.

  My course had always been clear: In the coming months, I would have to resign as CEO of the marijuana operating company to take the helm at the new company, American Cannabis Partners. I would continue to drive the vision and business development and stay on as the chairman of the board to both companies, but I would not manage Green Man’s day-to-day operations.

  So now I was presiding over what I thought was yet another first: the first executive search for the CEO of a legal marijuana company. We were putting out feelers to locate a top-level corporate brain, a Harvard MBA type, to take the company into the next decade and beyond. We had attracted institutional investors; now we needed great management. I didn’t think it would be hard to find the right person. Lately I had met so many professionals who were eager to do something, anything, in the world of marijuana. Was it so unrealistic to think that the right CEO was somewhere out there?

  Everywhere I looked, I faced bittersweet decisions. I loved Green Man. Moving into a new role would be hard, but it would be the best way to grow Green Man to its full potential.

  It would also allow me to look at big-picture issues, such as the overall perception of the industry, which I had begun thinking of on a regular basis.

  Every year one of my daughters’ schools has a silent auction to raise money for school events and trips throughout the year. Each year I offered the parent-teacher organization a coupon good for up to twenty adults to tour my grow facilities. I know the demand is there, because experience has shown me that people are insatiably curious about the burgeoning marijuana business. So far the school has rejected my donation each year. My pride isn’t wounded, y
ou understand. But as the years go by, and I make a point of offering every year, my gesture has become more about gauging how receptive the school is to my offer than anything else.

  The struggle going forward is about normalizing marijuana. It’s about making it part of our cultural landscape again, as okay as every liquor store you pass to and from work every day.

  The Cannabis Ranch is my chance to normalize marijuana, to bring it to the world on such a scale that it cannot be ignored. The way tourists will progress through the Cannabis Ranch is fraught with symbolism. They’ll descend from the reception hall of the visitors’ center into the basement grow. From there, they’ll walk down a glass-walled hallway, beholding the fragrant jungle coming to life under the lights.

  On the far end of the basement grow, they’ll come to a set of doors that will lead them to a bank of elevators. After entering, the elevators will rise, and when the doors open, our visitors will be standing in our glass-enclosed greenhouse. Right in the middle of the action.

  I said before that I am not an artist, not a poet, not a creative person in the artistic sense. But I cannot ignore the power of a beautiful metaphor. Our visitors will be embarking on a journey that mimics America’s own journey of enlightenment. As they move from the basement, they’re leaving marijuana’s past behind. When they enter the greenhouse, they’ll be looking at the future. From the closet out into the open. From the darkness into the light.

  It doesn’t get clearer than that.

  At the beginning of this story, I told you that I was searching for something. That I needed this business to succeed not because I craved the money but because it might teach me the way to joy and love. Today I know I’ve found it. I have never known as much happiness as I have growing and selling this gorgeous plant. It’s been the most wonderful business endeavor of my life.

  When I look at myself in the mirror, I know I’m not the same man who nearly destroyed his health running a business into the ground. Yes, I’m older. Yes, I’ve fallen down. But I’ve gotten back up and chosen to push ahead. And despite any obstacles and resistance and betrayal, I have not just survived but thrived.

  I’m not ashamed to say that marijuana has been my salvation. And in a larger sense, I think marijuana legalization ultimately will be recognized as one of the salvational stories of the United States.

  I can see how the business has touched others in my personal life.

  My daughters are growing up absorbing the lesson that their father is following his bliss and creating something that is meaningful to others as well.

  My mom is watching her son achieve a dream. Her golden years are also graced with the memory of her late partner, who was touched by the plant before his passing.

  My father, the physician, has been blessed with a new educational experience late in life. Recently, when he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, he began experimenting with marijuana-derived cannibidiol as a way to treat his condition. He noticed marked improvement in controlling aspects of the disease. As a doctor, he couldn’t resist sharing what he’d learned with others. I was proud to watch as he enthusiastically wrote up his findings and presented them at a medical conference.

  Corey, the grower who did so much to make our business a success, has taken my advice and begun consulting with up-and-coming marijuana businesses throughout the country. I know this will be the start of a long and profitable career for him. Proving my point that you must always look for the win-win, I’m pleased to say we will be sharing in that success together.

  My friend and real estate broker Dax recently got involved in the industry, developing an app called Green Spott that allows customers to order online through a smartphone.

  Most important, millions of people—Americans and non-Americans—who might have been jailed or killed or otherwise targeted by the war on marijuana will instead have the opportunity to lead positive, fulfilling lives.

  Many others, millions perhaps, will find their joy and their next career in this business. Maybe you will too. If you’re the slightest bit curious, you owe it to yourself to do the due diligence.

  Tell you what: Someday soon, the first generation of our plants will be settling into life at the Green Man Cannabis Ranch. The ones under glass will be our first to see what a Colorado spring or summer is like. The first to feel the rays of the sun on their leaves. They don’t have to hide anymore, and neither do we.

  The next time you’re in Denver, I’d welcome the chance to introduce you to our world. Book a long layover. The Green Man Cannabis Ranch will be waiting. I invite you to stop by and say high.

  Acknowledgments

  It’s not often that an entrepreneur gets a chance to write a book about a fascinating new growth industry that has changed his life. By any measure, I know I’m a lucky man, but I would not have been able to create the book you hold in your hands without the help, motivation, and support of a great number of people. Every one of them deserve a thank-you from a grateful author and friend.

  John Zakhem, you’re a good attorney, good golfer, and a great friend.

  This book began as the spark of an idea mentioned to my literary agent, Yfat Reiss Gendell, who recognized the potential, helped me develop the concept, and found Big Weed a good cowriter and home. For this I am indebted to Yfat and her entire team at Foundry Literary + Media. I’m lucky I landed in your stable of authors.

  Joseph D’Agnese, Yfat brought us together, and it has worked wonderfully. You have been a competent and calming influence as I moved through the great unknown of writing my first book. I appreciate your professionalism and the outstanding quality of your work. I have enjoyed working with you.

  My editor, Emily Carleton, and her executive editor, Elisabeth Dyssegaard, at Palgrave Macmillan pounced on this little book and embraced it passionately. Their entire team, who fearlessly volunteered for a “research trip” to the wilds of Colorado, is responsible for bringing this book to the rest of the world.

  To everyone at Green Man Cannabis, you know who you are, but especially: Barb Visher—your personal and professional support has inspired me, enabled me and encouraged me through the many ups and downs over the past five years. To my founding partners, Gary Schwartz, Audra and Scott Richmond, and Mike Visher: So many of the stories in this book are your stories, too. To our longtime employees, Kristin Aichinger, Jen Schmidt, Dustin, Zach, Dane, Sam, Hillary, Holly, and more: Your dedication and care is appreciated beyond words. This company could not be what it is today without your faith and determination. Corey—I mean every word: You are the best among the best.

  In a rapidly changing business, you come to rely on the advice of a trusted few. In this regard I am grateful for the advice of Christian Sederberg and Ed Rosenthal.

  I could never have gotten this business off the ground without the encouragement, intelligent counsel, and support of Mr. Pink—you are a prince among men and one of the most astute businessmen I know. And no, you cannot be Mr. Black or pick your own name.

  And to Dax Gurgan—you are my brother from a different mother.

  My life could not be complete without the ones I love. I’m grateful, Dad, that you were here for part of this journey. Mom, without your support I would feel lacking. Thanks too to my brother, John.

  To my wonderful daughters, Hannah, Harper, and Hadley (HaHaHa), I am inspired by the love I feel for each of you. I am proud of the people you are and I enjoy your company—I love you each with all my heart.

  And Rebecca: You are light and love, a true earth angel, nearly as beautiful on the outside as you are on the inside. You are the personification of loving kindness, loving beyond expectation or reason, inspiring, comforting, and supportive. God gave superpowers to the right human being. The benefit of your readings, channelings, and intuitive insight have given me authentic faith. I acknowledge this wouldn’t have been possible without you for a number o
f reasons, not the least of which because you introduced me to Yfat. Last, and in no way the least, thank you for agreeing to marry me.

  Notes

  Please note that some of the links referenced in this work may no longer be active.

  Introduction

  Details about how Colorado used its medical marijuana fund to prop up its state budget was drawn from an article by Tim Hoover, “Ritter Turns to Medical-Marijuana Fund to Help Balance Colorado Budget,” Denver Post, August 24, 2010.

  Admittedly, the history of the U.S. Prohibition era of alcohol is not a perfect analog to marijuana prohibition, but it’s one that is mined often by marijuana activists seeking lessons from that history. I found the best discussion in the book Marijuana Is Safer: So Why Are We Driving People to Drink? by Steve Fox, Paul Armentano, and Mason Tvert (White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green, updated and expanded edition, 2013).

  1. Brave New World

  The six qualifying conditions for medical marijuana in Colorado are cancer, HIV/AIDS, glaucoma, and conditions causing one or more of the following: severe pain, cachexia (wasting syndrome), severe nausea, seizures, or persistent muscle spasms. The Marijuana Policy Project, an advocacy group, summarizes the United States’s medical marijuana laws and patient rights and protections in a PDF available at the URL: http://www.mpp.org/assets/pdfs/library/MMJLawsSummary.pdf

  2. My Education

  The distinctions between the various species of cannabis are discussed in Ed Rosenthal’s Marijuana Grower’s Handbook by Ed Rosenthal (Oakland, CA: Quick American, 2010).

  Throughout this book, my “tasting notes” on various marijuana strains are based on my own experiences with those strains. A more comprehensive list of strains and their attributes can be found at Leafly.com.

  Discussions of human interaction with the cannabis plant in ancient history are drawn largely from The Pot Book: A Complete Guide to Cannabis, Its Role in Medicine, Politics, Science, and Culture, edited by Julie Holland, MD (Rochester, VT: Park Street Press, 2010). See, in particular, chapter 2, “Early/Ancient History,” by Chris Bennett, and chapter 4, “The Botany of Cannabis,” by Lyle E. Craker, PhD, and Zoe Gardner.