CannaGather Digital Episode 3: The Evolution of Cannabis Advocacy

I love weed.

Seun Adedeji is the founder and CEO of Elev8 Cannabis, LLC. He is the youngest African American Man in the United States to Own a Cannabis Dispensary, has been on the front lines of the legalization process in multiple states.

Seun brings significant commercial real estate experience to Elev8, as a real estate investor and landlord. He has been featured in Leafly, Merry Jane, and Wisconsin Watch and serves as the Cannabis Czar for the Black Chamber of Commerce.

Seun's phenomenal story of being a disadvantaged immigrant youth raised in Chicago-turned entrepreneurial powerhouse & multi-state operator has led to his being recognized as an inspirational figure to many across the industry.

Shanel A. Lindsay is the Founder and CEO of Ardent Life Inc., based in Boston, MA. Ardent is a cutting-edge appliance and education company that has become a global leader in providing high-tech consumer products to the cannabis space.

Among consumers and within the commercial industry, utilizing the beneficial compounds of cannabis involves significant uncertainty and expense. Based on breakthrough research into the underlying process of decarboxylation, Ardent developed the first and only precision decarboxylator, the NOVA to fully activate THC and CBD with no loss. The NOVA allows consumers to create accurately dosed cannabis therapies at a fraction of the cost. Just this month, Ardent launched the long-awaited FX All-In-One Cannabis Kitchen, the “easy bake oven” for cannabis that cooks food and bakes edibles right inside the device. Ardent is poised for explosive growth in both the B2B and B2C cannabis segments, as well as the broader health and wellness market.

Shanel’s journey with cannabis began nearly 20 years ago when she began growing cannabis to make edibles, topicals, and suppositories to treat an ovarian cyst that developed after her son was born. Shortly after Massachusetts decriminalized cannabis possession in 2008, Shanel saw first-hand that decriminalization didn’t grant communities the protections they were supposed to be afforded, when instead of receiving a small citation, she was arrested for possessing less than half of the decriminalized amount. An attorney by training who clerked, excelled as a civil litigator, and worked as an executive for the State prior to becoming a cannabis entrepreneur, one of Shanel’s missions is to see the new cannabis economy converge with the traditional professional world while reversing the disproportionate and racially-biased trauma stemming from the War on Drugs.

Shanel co-drafted Question 4, the successful ballot initiative that legalized cannabis for adult use in Massachusetts, and was twice appointed by the State Treasurer to the Massachusetts Cannabis Advisory Board. Shanel called on regulators to reserve social consumption and delivery licenses exclusively for participants in the state’s equity and economic empowerment programs and fights to expand protections and access for underserved patients and communities.

Shanel is also co-founder of Equal Opportunities Now, a non-profit that successfully fought to preserve and expand the equity provisions in the new Massachusetts cannabis law and works with communities and state governments around the country to create an equitable marijuana industry.

Shanel received a degree in Anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania and a law degree from Northeastern University School of Law.

Andrew DeAngelo is a visionary leader with a proven track record of enacting systemic social change and developing best practices in cannabis — he is the very definition of a trailblazer and someone who has proudly walked the road less traveled.

During his almost 13-year tenure at legendary California dispensary chain, Harborside, where he currently serves as an advisor, Andrew has pioneered legal cannabis business processes and provided groundbreaking political engagement and thought leadership to the cannabis community. Andrew also lends his vast cannabis business and political expertise as a consultant for hire to the global community at large.

Andrew led the design and development of gold-standard cannabis retail by innovating many “firsts” for the industry. These include: introducing CBD medicines to heal severely epileptic children as documented in Discovery Channel’s Weed Wars, implementing the first lab-testing program in the history of cannabis dispensing, creating child-resistant packaging for edibles, standardizing inventory tracking, initiating senior outreach, and successfully preventing the federal government from seizing Harborside in forfeiture actions against the company in 2012.

Andrew is co-founder and Treasurer of the Board for the non-profit Last Prisoner Project (LPP). LPP’s mission is to free and re-integrate all cannabis prisoners on earth into mainstream society. Since its inception in 2019, LPP has successfully re-integrated the formerly incarcerated and 2020 will be the year LPP frees its first constituent.

Andrew is also a founding Board of Directors member of the California Cannabis Industry Association (CCIA), the premier cannabis industry trade association in California, where he served from 2013 to 2020 building the organization from zero to 500 member companies. CCIA continues to represent the industry in California as it works on reforming Prop 64 to improve the legal and regulatory framework for cannabis trade throughout the state.