How New Regulations Impact You
October 17, 2018
Meet Mara Gordon: From Crippling Illness to Medical Cannabis Pioneer
September 22, 2019
Mara Gordon is exactly what I thought of her, ambitious, someone with a smile on her face leading into her deeply intellectual side and then there is the plant. She sees cannabis as a medical product that has real healing. I would call it agility in the broader scope. Health and wellness needs a place to go within the cannabis dialect. It’s not only recreational cannabis that drives the market. There is real healing taking place here from real medical doctors who are not afraid to buck the tide and create real change away from traditional methods of healing.
I want to share with you someone who has some really fantastic ideas that have taken our collective energy to a higher place in the universe of healing. This is a person who sees a much broader picture in the term “medical cannabis.” Thus, without further delay, may I please introduce you to Mara Gordon.
WB=Warren Bobrow: Where are you from? Why cannabis? When did you first discover the plant? What was cannabis like when you were young? Quality level? Do you prefer outdoor or indoor grown?
MG=Mara Gordon: I was raised in Dallas, TX in a Jewish family. My two older sisters smoked cannabis, so I was exposed to it in the early 1970’s at age 13. It was locally referred to as ‘ditch weed’. There were no flowers – just shake, stems, and seeds. My first impression was not positive as it was harsh on my lungs and made me paranoid. Over the next 35+ years, I tried smoking cannabis a handful of times, and enjoyed it twice – once when a friend had Thai Stick, and another time, Acapulco Gold. The California cannabis of today bears little resemblance to this early weed. The numerous breeders here have resulted in cultivars that provide a myriad of uses. Some aid sleeping while others are energizing. Want to curb your appetite? There’s a cultivar for that. Need help with eating? Cannabis has you covered. It is true cannabis is a weed that can grow anywhere, but the best is grown in greenhouses. This offers protection from the elements and pesticide over-spray from neighboring farms, and the inclusion of light deprivation allows the grower to control the growth cycle increasing the per plant yields and time to harvest. Indoor growing is a necessity until cannabis can cross political borders – both domestic and international. Eventually, we will have the majority of crops grown in places such as the Emerald Triangle and Colombia – both with ideal growing conditions. Just as the iPhone is assembled in California, its parts are made globally. Cannabis products will be much the same. Consumers will benefit from an idealized supply chain and manufacturing that is forcing redundancies and inefficiencies today.