Equity Member Spotlight: Modesto Cannabis Collective
NCIA’s editorial department continues the Member Spotlight series by highlighting our Social Equity Scholarship Recipients as part of our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Program. Participants are gaining first-hand access to regulators in key markets to get insight on the industry, tips for raising capital, and advice on how to access and utilize data to ensure success in their businesses, along with all the other benefits available to NCIA members.
Tell us a bit about you, your background, and why you launched your company.
My name is Deanna Garcia with Modesto Cannabis Collective. I was born and raised in the city of Sacramento. I am a mother of five amazing humans and a loving wife. I started growing cannabis in my garage for my personal use as a patient. In 1996, I found cannabis to help me with the arthritis symptoms and pains I was experiencing. During this time I joined as many cannabis groups as possible such as NORML, Americans For Safe Access, and different collectives around Sacramento and Oakland to educate myself.
20 years later, in 2016, the city of Sacramento allowed me to register as a cannabis cultivator. I purchased a warehouse in the city of Sacramento where I would give tours to government officials and staff to help form the legislation and regulations currently being used today. I later sold my indoor grow to help fund and start Riverbank Cannabis Collective, Dixon Wellness, Modesto Cannabis Collective, Napa Cannabis Collective, Chuck’s Wellness, Tracy Cannabis Collective, Khemia Cannabis Dispensary, Khemia Manufacturing, Yolo Family Farms, and Woodland Roots Farm, along with my best friend and business partner Kimberly Cargile (NCIA Board Member). We have been tremendously blessed by God to win so many cannabis licenses across the Central Valley of California.
What unique value does your company offer to the cannabis industry?
Our companies are unique in that our board’s ownership all comes from an incubator program at A Therapeutic Alternative, a retail store in the city of Sacramento. All of the CEOs started as staff members of A Therapeutic Alternative, some working in the very first dispensaries in California prior to that. As trailblazers, we believe in locking arms and rising together making staff into owners sharing and creating generational wealth. So far we have been successful and able to help over 25 people become owners of cannabis companies and we are not finished.
What is your goal for the greater good of cannabis?
My goal is to help as many people as I can, that have been in the legacy cannabis industry become licensed cannabis business owners before it is out of reach forever. I want to keep spreading education on cannabis and its healing powers. I also seek to help bring safe access to every part of California, by attending one Board of Supervisors and or City Council meeting at a time to educate the officials and citizens.
What kind of challenges do you face in the industry and what solutions would you like to see?
For owners and operators that have been in the legacy cannabis industry and are now becoming owners of newly regulated cannabis businesses, the challenge they face is the cost. The capital is just not there to start up, or for upgrading to the new regulations. The banks will not work with the industry and we can not go to the small business administration. The cost is so much more money to become a licensed regulated cannabis business and the obstacles are extreme. We are now going up against billion-dollar companies for licenses in cities and counties across California. Before you know it, all of the California cannabis industry will be taken over by huge corporations and billionaires. We are just trying to help the ones still hanging on. I am working on the Diversity Inclusion Social Equity team with the California Cannabis Industry Association and with the city of Modesto to help form more social equity in the state. I would love to see a state equity program to include the people of every city and county. The same guideline, the same application. One state-funded and run equity program.
Why did you join NCIA? What’s the best or most important part about being a member through the Social Equity Scholarship Program?
I joined the National Cannabis Industry Association to help build reasonable responsible regulations across the United States. I enjoy the supportive community through the weekly calls with other Diversity Equity Inclusion members and appreciate the opportunity to access NCIA’s full member benefits. The best part is the overall support of NCIA’s DEI program in order to help begin to alleviate the injustices from the war on drugs by those most impacted. And of course to free a loving, caring, and healing plant from over-burdensome regulations and corporate greed.
Member Blog: My Journey Through The Intersection of the LGBTQ Community and Cannabis Movement
By Erich Pearson, SPARC
NCIA Board and Founding Member
Reflecting on the decades-long fight to end prohibition of marijuana, one person comes to mind this month as we look at the similar and interconnected decades-long Gay Pride movement and what it means for the LGBTQ community today. One activist largely credited for legalizing medical cannabis in California is the original “cannabis influencer” Dennis Peron. We have much to be grateful for as we remember his legacy advocating for AIDS patients in California to have access to medical cannabis.
As for my role in both of these these important causes, I arrived in San Francisco in 2000 after graduating college in Indiana. I was happy to find San Francisco to be not only accepting of me as a gay man, but also accepting of me as someone interested in the cannabis movement. In the 1990s, there were a handful of medical cannabis dispensaries operating, un-permitted and un-regulated. It wasn’t until 2006 that Americans For Safe Access (ASA), Drug Policy Alliance (DPA), and Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) along with a handful of local advocates led the charge to regulate dispensaries.
A few of the most vocal advocates were veterans from the political days of Dennis Peron. Dennis was not involved in the regulatory process of 2006. It was widely known that Dennis didn’t like regulations (he repeated this during the Prop 64 campaign years later). Dennis thought cannabis should be grown and sold freely, outside of an alcohol-type regulatory environment. He was right, but unrealistic – hence his waning interest in the politics of it.
Dennis did have a few friends who wanted to see cannabis regulated in San Francisco, and one was Wayne Justmann, a gay man that used to work the door at Dennis’ cannabis club at 1444 Market Street. Wayne is a friend of mine today, and we worked closely together to advocate for a dispensary program that respected the existing operators, despite their “inappropriate” locations in many cases. We ultimately won this battle, as San Francisco has a healthy respect for social pioneers.
San Francisco was also the first city to regulate on-site consumption. This was allowed in order to provide AIDS patients a safe place to medicate, outside of government housing. This has proven to be a successful program, with little public resistance even today as we permit more of these lounges, primarily designed for adult-use consumption.
I started a free compassion program in San Francisco in the early 2000’s at Maitri AIDS Hospice. We still deliver twice a month to patients there. This has been an incredibly successful program and a very rewarding experience for myself and the staff who carry it out.
Today, I don’t see a lot of synergies anymore between gay progress and cannabis progress despite its intertwined history, but we at SPARC honor that history with a t-shirt claiming victory: “Legalized Gay Pot.” Of course, the fight for fair treatment and equality for both cannabis and LGBTQ right is far from over, but in San Francisco, I’d say we’ve come a long way on both fronts. And as cannabis legalization sweep through other states across the country, we can see studies that show gay, lesbian and bisexual people being the highest level of consumers among other select demographics, showing that our communities continue to overlap.
In looking back on all of this history and progress, I am thankful for all of the advocates who put themselves forward to fight for cannabis AND LGBTQ rights – we wouldn’t be here without their hard work, dedication, and selflessness. I now look forward to a future where everyone, in every state, can access the cannabis plant and be treated with respect and fairness.
Photo By CannabisCamera.com
Erich Pearson is a recognized leader in the cannabis industry – a long-time advocate, legislative consultant, dispensary operator, cultivation expert, and NCIA board member.
A proponent of medical cannabis regulation, cultivation, and best practices since 2000, Erich served on the San Francisco District Attorney’s Medical Marijuana Advisory Group and consults on state and local medical cannabis policy and legislation.
Erich was instrumental in the passage of both San Francisco’s Medical Cannabis Dispensary Act and the law enforcement “lowest priority” resolution of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. As a result of Erich’s work he was appointed in 2007 by Supervisor David Campos to sit on San Francisco’s Medical Cannabis Working Group.
In 2010 Erich launched SPARC, a nonprofit medical cannabis dispensary providing safe, consistent and affordable medical cannabis to patients in San Francisco. SPARC provides high quality, lab-tested cannabis to qualified patients, and collaborates with local hospices, residential care facilities, and dispensaries to successfully supply medical marijuana at no cost to seriously ill patients.
How does SPARC do it? By growing cannabis more efficiently. Erich’s expertise is constructing and managing large indoor cultivation facilities. With a robust Research & Development team, Erich is meticulously focused on developing the optimal environmental recipe for high-yield cultivations using unique systems of lighting, ventilation and design.
SPARC is a Founding & Supporting Member of NCIA. Erich holds a BS in Construction and Project Management from Purdue University.
Member Spotlight: THC Design
To kick off 2017, we’re highlighting NCIA Member THC Design, whom you may have met as a sponsor of some of our Quarterly Cannabis Caucus events in 2016. Seth Hilsabeck, the company’s Chief Operating Officer and Head of Research & Development, tells us a bit more about THC Design, a family-oriented cannabis cultivation company based in California, and what they’ve been up to as a company since launching publicly in 2014.
NCIA Member Member Since: June 2016
Tell us about your background in cannabis and why you joined the team at THC Design?
Seth Hilsabeck, COO & Head of R&D
President/Owner Ryan Jennemann and I both grew up in Oklahoma and have been close friends since grade school. Both of us have had a fondness and passion for cannabis and its many efficacies since being teenagers. Ryan was lucky enough to be taught to grow by his father in their backyard between their tomato plants. Ryan witnessed his father suffer from chronic migraines for as long as he can remember. With little to no access to safe cannabis, Ryan’s father was forced to continue managing his pain with opioid prescription drugs which ultimately lead to his death at the age of 47. Determined to prevent other families from suffering through similar tragedies, Ryan moved to California to spread his wings as an advocate and cultivator in the medicinal cannabis movement.
I was back home quietly using cannabis to alleviate the symptoms of my cerebral palsy. I soon began to take notice of the new legal movements in Colorado, quickly making new friends in the industry. Ryan and I were suddenly reunited back in Oklahoma in late 2013 at a funeral for a close friend of ours who had passed away. We quickly began comparing notes and talking of our passions for the future of cannabis. Soon after, I moved out to California to help with publicly launching THC Design with Ryan in Los Angeles.
What unique value does THC Design offer to the cannabis industry?
We aim to set the standard for advanced cultivation practices and techniques while taking steps to create a self-sustainable operation via renewable energy resources. By partnering with leading scientists in various fields, THC Design hopes to break new ground in the cannabis industry. We are committed to making scientific advances in identifying the roles of not only THC and CBD, but also the dozens of other compounds in cannabis that can potentially benefit patients. This will help us breed better plants that can acutely treat diseases and ailments, all while producing safer quality medicine year in and year out.
Cannabis companies have a unique responsibility to shape this growing industry to be socially responsible and advocate for it to be treated fairly. How does THC Design help work toward that goal for the greater good of the cannabis industry?
THC Design team, Beach Clean-Up with Surf Rider
Building a community and contributing our voice to the cannabis industry is extremely important to our THC Design Family. We support national and local advocacy groups such as NCIA, CCIA, and Americans for Safe Access to address legalization, access, and research of cannabis. We work closely with lawmakers and policy writers to ensure fairness in the ongoing organization and regulation of cannabis in California. Reaching out to the community is a huge part of who we are. Last year we worked with Surf Rider Foundation for a beach clean-up, Midnight Mission to help with their lunch service, and afterwards we hit the streets and passed out over 1,500 fleece blankets to the homeless just in time for the winter chill. Many similar projects are in the pipeline for 2017.
Why did you join NCIA? What’s the best part about being a member?
Joining NCIA is very important to us so that we can remain at the forefront of one of the few national organizations for cannabis advocacy. The network of top companies and individuals involved is a vital part of our efforts to help the cannabis industry in the U.S. grow and to be respected across the globe.
NCIA’s editorial department continues the Member Spotlight series by highlighting our Social Equity Scholarship Recipients as part of our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Program. Participants are gaining first-hand access to regulators in key markets to get insight on the industry, tips for raising capital, and advice on how to access and utilize data to ensure success in their businesses, along with all the other benefits available to NCIA members. 
My name is Deanna Garcia with Modesto Cannabis Collective. I was born and raised in the city of Sacramento. I am a mother of five amazing humans and a loving wife. I started growing cannabis in my garage for my personal use as a patient. In 1996, I found cannabis to help me with the arthritis symptoms and pains I was experiencing. During this time I joined as many cannabis groups as possible such as NORML, Americans For Safe Access, and different collectives around Sacramento and Oakland to educate myself.
For owners and operators that have been in the legacy cannabis industry and are now becoming owners of newly regulated cannabis businesses, the challenge they face is the cost. The capital is just not there to start up, or for upgrading to the new regulations. The banks will not work with the industry and we can not go to the small business administration. The cost is so much more money to become a licensed regulated cannabis business and the obstacles are extreme. We are now going up against billion-dollar companies for licenses in cities and counties across California. Before you know it, all of the California cannabis industry will be taken over by huge corporations and billionaires. We are just trying to help the ones still hanging on. I am working on the Diversity Inclusion Social Equity team with the California Cannabis Industry Association and with the city of Modesto to help form more social equity in the state. I would love to see a state equity program to include the people of every city and county. The same guideline, the same application. One state-funded and run equity program.
We aim to set the standard for advanced cultivation practices and techniques while taking steps to create a self-sustainable operation via renewable energy resources. By partnering with leading scientists in various fields, THC Design hopes to break new ground in the cannabis industry. We are committed to making scientific advances in identifying the roles of not only THC and CBD, but also the dozens of other compounds in cannabis that can potentially benefit patients. This will help us breed better plants that can acutely treat diseases and ailments, all while producing safer quality medicine year in and year out.