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 Microsoft veterans and farmers, real estate agents and pastry
chefs, former journalists and longtime pot growers alike are seeking
new challenges — and fortunes — in the production, processing and
sale of a drug that's been illegal for generations.
In Colorado, the only other state to legalize marijuana, existing
medical marijuana dispensaries can begin selling for recreational
use in January. But in Washington, where sales are expected to begin
in late spring, the industry is open to nearly anyone — provided
they've lived in the state for three months, pass a background check
and raise any money from within the state. Washington on Monday
begins accepting applications from those eager to jump in.
Click through the portraits, or read through the profiles, of those
hoping to make their mark in the new world of legal weed.
THE PIG FARMER
Bruce King says he was a 22-year-old high-school dropout when
Microsoft hired him as its 80th employee in 1986. A software
engineer, he eventually left and started or acquired two other
companies — telephone adult chat and psychic hotlines — but he
really wanted to farm.
He found a management team to handle his business and started
breeding pigs north of Seattle. After Washington legalized marijuana
last fall, he looked at pot as any other crop. The potential margins
were "fabulously attractive," he says. He found a farm with a
25,000-square-foot barn for a marijuana operation.
King, 50, doesn't like pot himself, but says, "If people are going
to eat a stupid drug, they should eat my stupid drug." He likens it
to running a psychic hotline when he's never had a reading. "You
don't have to like Brussels sprouts to grow them."
POT & PATISSERIES
Marla Molly Poiset had swapped her three-decade-old home-furnishing
store and interior design business in Colorado for a life of world
travel when she learned some devastating news: Her eldest daughter
had leukemia.
She suspended her travels to help her daughter and her family
through the ordeal. She then continued her tour, attending cooking
school in Paris. Poiset, 59, graduated last spring, and had an idea:
"Blending my newfound patisserie skills with medical cannabis," she
says.
So she abandoned Paris for Seattle, where she's been developing
recipes for marijuana-infused chocolate truffles for recreational
and medical use. Her aim is to create "a beautiful package" like
French chocolate or pastries for people like her daughter.
They could "ingest discreetly and enjoy life, rather than everything
being in a pill," she says.
420-NINER
If legal pot is the Green Rush, Daniel Curylo has some unique
credentials: He's been an actual prospector.
He helped put himself through college working for a company that
flew him into northern British Columbia and the Yukon with a map, a
compass and a heavy backpack. He'd pan for gold and take soil
samples. Another source of income in those days? Growing and selling
marijuana with a few other political science majors.
A former techie and ex-house flipper, Curylo, 41, says his
background in "business development and taking risks" is perfect for
the legal pot world.
He has invested $400,000 so far. His goal? A cannabis business park
northwest of Olympia that would feature his growing operation,
Cascade Crops, as well as retail stores run by his mother, father
and aunt.
'THE POSTER CHILD FOR ANTI-CANNABIS'
Angel Swanson was raised on the South Side of Chicago by a mother
who warned: "If you see drugs, run."
Decades later, the businesswoman and real estate agent found herself
in Washington state with a husband, seven children and a strong bias
against illegal drugs — "the poster child for anti-cannabis," she
says.
That is, until one of her daughters, who had serious digestive
issues and had never weighed more than 100 pounds, came home from
college one day and ate a full plate of food. The girl had tried
pot-laced cookies, which stimulated her appetite. Swanson lost it.
"Do you have any idea the sacrifices that have been made for you to
go to college?" she remembers saying.
Swanson, 52, did some research and couldn't find a reason for her
daughter not to use weed. She and her husband opened a medical
marijuana dispensary, The Cannabis Emporium, near Tacoma. They now
want to sell recreational pot, but hope to continue to serve
patients — a challenge, since stores will be barred from trumpeting
pot's therapeutic benefits.
FROM MBA TO THC
Todd Spaits and Bilye (sounds like "Billy") Miller are more
gym-and-yoga than smoke-and-cough. The couple doesn't use pot — "I
much prefer a glass of scotch," Spaits says — but they say they know
a good business opportunity when they see one.
The pair previously worked in online marketing in San Diego, and
Spaits has a master's in business administration. Their most recent
startup is skyfu.com, which helps restaurants monitor what people
are saying about them on social media.
Spaits, 39, also helps judge business plan competitions and believes
his skills are perfectly honed to run a successful pot store.
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He and Miller, 38, who has also worked as a bartender, are excited
about Washington's grand experiment. They sought advice from friends
who operate medical dispensaries in California to help draw up a
revenue model. They're seeking a retail license in Kirkland, east of
Seattle.
THE PATH FROM ADDICTION
It started with small doses that eased the aches of restaurant work.
But over time, Yevgeniy "Eugene" Frid found himself addicted to
prescription painkillers. "It completely envelops your whole life,"
he said.
He tried to quit many times, and when he finally did, he says,
cannabis played a huge role — displacing the opiates with a
substance much gentler on the body.
Frid, 28, quit his job doing business management and marketing for a
video game company when a friend asked him to help start a medical
marijuana dispensary. A Greener Today opened in Seattle in 2012 and
now serves about 4,000 people.
Frid says his most gratifying work is helping patients get off
opiates the way he did, so he has mixed feelings about applying for
a recreational retail license. The future of unregulated medical
marijuana in Washington is dim — many state officials see it as a
threat to the heavily taxed recreational system. Some medical
dispensary operators believe they have little choice but to convert
to the recreational market.
"We don't know what's happening," Frid says.
THE SECURITY GUARD
For a guy with a uniform and a gun, Steve Smith was unusually
welcome at medical marijuana dispensaries. Of course, he was a
security guard, not a federal drug agent.
Smith, 29, had a background in food marketing. His father worked for
a large grocery cooperative in California. He earned a degree in
agriculture business management and started marketing organic and
natural products for a food broker. He liked thinking he was helping
people eat better.
A friend who was working in security suggested Smith do the same.
Looking to keep busy and make some extra money, he took his training
and became a certified security guard. The company that hired him
happened to assign him to a couple of medical marijuana
dispensaries.
"You can only work as a guard for so long before you want to open
your own shop," he says. He wants to apply to open two retail
marijuana shops near Tacoma.
THE SECRET SODA
Cecilia Sivertson worked for eight years as a paralegal in the
prosecutor's office for Washington's most populous county. She
helped make sure people paid child support and tracked down deadbeat
dads. It was a rewarding, stressful and sometimes depressing job.
After her husband died in a car accident in 2001, she decided she
needed a more upbeat line of work and joined a labeling business.
Sivertson, 55, has epilepsy and arthritis in her hands. About two
years ago, she says, she noticed improvement in both when she
started using marijuana. Last spring, she began making products
infused with cannabis oil under her "Nana's Secret" line. Her
specialty is pot-infused soda — with the soda concentrate produced
by a client of the labeling business.
The Alabama native says she's applying to become a licensed
marijuana processor so her sodas and other items can be sold in
retail pot stores.
CANNABIS: A FORCE FOR GOOD
Paul Schrag has a simple philosophy: He hopes to use his skills to
do the most good in the world.
For a while, that meant working in journalism, enticed by its power
to shape public discourse. Before being laid off in 2009, he worked
as a reporter for the Business Examiner, a biweekly publication in
Tacoma.
Nowadays, it means working in the pot industry.
The 40-year-old says he's been growing marijuana since 1999 and uses
it to treat lifelong neck pain. He began working at a medical
marijuana collective, where part of his job entails coming up with a
marketing and public education plan to help erase any stigma
associated with cannabis use.
He believes the medical and social benefits of the plant are only
just starting to be understood. He plans to work as a grower's vice
president of marketing, research and development, and believes his
knowledge of pot and business will help.
"I'm one of those rare cats that get both," he says.
[Associated
Press; GENE JOHNSON]
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