, an advocacy and consulting firm doing the work of educating communities, promoting better products, and helping bring safe, effective, New York-grown cannabis products into legal retail stores right here in our region. This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.“When I discovered cannabis, I learned how to focus. I used cannabis to calm down when I was one of those kids that couldn’t sit still; I got started when I was around 16 years old.
“I think the only way to win this war is to educate people. It should have never been illegal in the first place, and giant miseducation was put out there, and people bought it, so they need to be reeducated. This plant is medicine.” “I do feel like a lot of people have joined on without knowing the history, thinking they could make a bunch of money or that it’s cool… but if you know the history, you should expect this lawsuit. You should expect that Nassau County will opt out. You should expect that people will get behind veterans [for the first round of conditional licenses] before minorities, women, and other impacted groups [targeted for equity with Conditional Adult Use Retail Dispensary licenses].
“Unfortunately, Nassau County mostly opted out [of adult-use sales]. If you can’t trust the local plug, you better get on that grow-your-own train. And nothing is ever as good as the cannabis you grow yourself. That’s what I say to people: start preparing for that, make a little stink about why that’s not allowed yet, and why are there illegal dispensaries around but not legal ones?”