Family crisis drives company mission
By Patrick Wagner
For the Luce family, the formation of GOAT Labs was a matter of life and death.
Nineteen-year-old John Granberg was stricken with Stage IV cancer in 2009. After a month of undergoing chemotherapy treatments, eating anything without vomiting was nearly impossible.
Three different anti-nausea medications had proven completely ineffective. It was enough to drive anyone crazy, said John’s mother, Dani Luce.
Despite every effort to curb the disease’s progress, Dani found herself powerless against the life-threatening illness. John’s body simply didn’t have the energy to fight the cancer.
One night, while Dani lamented the futile attempts to control John’s nausea, her father presented an alternative. Dana Luce, a Vietnam veteran, suggested marijuana.
“I have just been around it for a long time and I’ve found that it helps people,” Dana said.
While many claim cannabis has the power to cure cancer, the plant’s true medical prowess remains highly debated and poorly researched. Most physicians won’t prescribe the drug — even in states where medical marijuana is legal. But the palliative effects of marijuana are undeniable for some people who are in pain.
However, Dani’s initial response was one of incredulity.
“I said, ‘He can’t smoke pot. He has a seven-inch tumor over his heart and his lung,’” she recalled.
But willing to try anything to help her son fight the illness, Dani opted to give her father’s recommendation a try, adding cannabis to John’s food so he could avoid doing more harm than good by smoking.
For the previous month, eating had meant vomiting for John. Even when he was able to keep his cannabis-infused dinner down, Dani thought it might be a fluke. But when he woke up the following morning and stated, “Mom, I’m hungry,” Dani became a believer.
Need for testing
Today, John Granberg’s cancer has been in remission for five years.
The challenges he faced led his family to take a more active role in his treatment. The complications of medical cannabis soon surfaced and Dani was forced to deal with issues of quality that varied greatly in Oregon.
“We needed to start testing the cannabis,” Dani said, “because if he had gotten any sort of fungus, mold, bacteria, anything whatsoever, it could have killed him. Because he had no immune system.”
So in 2010, Dana bought a gas chromatograph for testing. Through word of mouth, more patients began to request the Luce family’s testing services. In 2012, GOAT Labs became a limited liability company. As the testing lab grew alongside their notoriety, the LLC changed into a corporation, owned by Dana and four fellow veterans. The men all served on the same helicopter crew during the Vietnam War, where Dana recognized the healing properties of cannabis.
“We all knew there were medical benefits to weed,” Dana said. “In Vietnam we used to smoke it after really bad missions, and it helped.”
Dana had been floored by the effectiveness cannabis had in helping with her son’s cancer. Growing up around hippies and bikers she had always equated alcohol and cannabis as being one and the same, but she quickly became convinced of its benefits.
By 2012, when Washington voters approved Initiative 502 to legalize recreational marijuana, GOAT Labs was perfectly suited to take on the new business. Dani took on the role of CEO in April 2014, shortly before Measure 91 changed marijuana laws in Oregon.
GOAT Labs (an acronym for Genesis Organic Assurance Testing) has seen significant growth over the years, doubling its staff and expanding into Portland, Oregon.
But Dana said the company’s mission remains unchanged.
“The scope of the company has always been to protect the sick that need the medication,” Dana said. “The fact that there is recreational out there is an added bonus to our operation, but we got into this to take care of patients and that’s still our concern.”