Behind the scenes, we’re always working on ideas and strategies to improve the content we publish and we take great pride in being a reliable, accurate and insightful source of business information for cannabis industry entrepreneurs.
From our very first issue, we wanted to be different than every other marijuana magazine out there. We didn’t want to be just another lifestyle publication that promoted cannabis culture and focused on celebrities, strains and advocacy.
We believe this has helped us become one of the fastest-growing magazines in the country and now the No. 2 selling monthly cannabis magazine in the country, based on Barnes & Noble sales (obviously, High Times remains the best-seller in this category, but we’re gaining ground quickly).
The lifestyle market — both in print and digital formats — is incredibly crowded and seeing new entrants every week it seems. The marijuana business sector is growing too, but we remain committed to being unique and compelling to provide our readers something they can’t find through Google searches and Facebook feeds.
To that end, we’re happy to introduce two of our latest upgrades in this issue: the relaunch of our Living the Dream section and Marijuana Venture’s Content Advisory Panel.
Living the Dream is written by people who have firsthand knowledge of the trials and tribulations of being in the cannabis industry — growers, processors and retailers know better than anybody what it takes to succeed and the obstacles that future entrepreneurs will face, which will be invaluable to the next wave of their peers.
With the Content Advisory Panel, we wanted to lean on experts whose experience goes beyond the realm of cannabis — kind of a check and balance for an industry that’s generally very inward looking.
We enlisted a trio of attorneys: intellectual property expert Scott Warner and David Kerr, a business lawyer, were two of the first people we consulted with when we first started the company back in February 2014; Catherine Morisett is an extremely sharp employment law expert, a sector we see being crucial to the industry’s long-term success.
With pesticide use being such a major concern in cannabis, Suzanne Wainwright-Evans was a logical choice. She has more than 25 years of experience focusing on biological pest controls and the proper use of pesticides. She runs Buglady Consulting and has worked all over the world as a consultant for greenhouses, nurseries and gardens.
Nadia Sabeh has a Ph.D. in agriculture and biosystems engineering, and owns the consulting firm, Dr. Greenhouse. She wrote an article in this issue (see Page 96) on the science of plant physiology and how environmental factors work together to affect growth rates and the profitability of an operation.
Brenda Wells has a Ph.D. in risk management and insurance, and she’s a professor at East Carolina University. She has written numerous articles on the risk management implications of cannabis legalization.
Rounding out our current roster of experts is Dr. Rachel Knox. Readers might remember her from our 40 Under 40 section in the June issue of Marijuana Venture.
Dr. Knox is the co-founder and consulting physician at the Oregon-based American Cannabinoid Clinics. Not only does she have a remarkable pedigree — her mother, father and younger sister are also doctors and entrepreneurs — but we were impressed by her holistic approach to cannabis and medicine. Even though we don’t publish much on the medical benefits of cannabis, it’s important that we have a medical expert who can help distinguish science-based facts from dubious, pie-in-the-sky claims.
We will continue to refine the look and content of the magazine in future issues and as always, we encourage readers to voice their input.
Garrett Rudolph
Editor
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