2018 Summit

Agronomy Panel

Our twenty-first century economy may focus on agriculture, not information.

-  James Howard Kunstler

Cannabis – The Next Great Agricultural Industry.

The legalization of cannabis and hemp in Washington State has opened a pathway for the whole plant and its varieties to come out of the proverbial closet and into the light, as agriculture. The socially beneficial implications of this transformation will depend on the ecological sustainability of how the plants are grown. The new industry has a great deal to learn from existing agricultural expertise about soil, water, food and pest mitigation techniques. This panel draws on broader non-cannabis expertise as well as the experience of cannabis growers to explore questions of sustainability, regulation and ecology to help push the industry towards ecological and regulatory best practices.

Current Speakers on this panel include:

Cindy Cooper, Plant Services Program Manager, WA State Department of Agriculture

Andrew Corbin, Agronomist and Resource Recovery Consultant at Impact Bioenergy

Mowgli Holmes, Co-Founder, Chief Executive Officer, Phylos Bioscience

Kevin Jodrey, Wonderland Nursery

Therapeutic Use of Cannabis

I calculated about 6% of the current U.S. marijuana studies investigate the benefits of medical marijuana. The rest are designed to investigate harm. That imbalance paints a highly distorted picture. It is irresponsible not to provide the best care we can as a medical community, care that could involve marijuana.

- Dr. Sanjay Gupta

Therapy & Use: Cannabis as medicine

The Cannabis plant has a history of medicinal use dating back thousands of years across many cultures. Today’s debates about the therapeutic and medical efficacy of the plant reflect prohibition’s barrier to scientific inquiry. This applies to both its potential application as standardized modern medicine, and the recent reinvigoration of herbal and traditional medicine at large in our society. This panel will address the current roadblocks in place, as it pertains to cannabis treatments and research, and will look at ways to think about overcoming these obstacles and the knowledge acquired despite heavy restrictions.

Current Speakers on this panel include:

Sunil Aggarwal, MD, PhD, SageMED

AC Braddock, CEO Eden Labs

Amanda Reiman, PhD MSW, Secretary of the International Cannabis Farmer’s Association & Head of Community Relations for Flow Kana.

Randy Simmons, Former WSLCB Deputy Director

Nephi Stella, Ph.D., Professor Pharmacology and Psychiatry, UW; Co-director Center for Cannabis Research; Founder Stella Therapeutics, Inc.

Economics Panel

The legal marijuana industry could be the fastest growing sector of the U.S. economy.

- Time Magazine

Economic Impacts of the Cannabis market

The ever shifting landscape of the cannabis market ensures that each year is both dynamic and volatile for individual State’s cannabis industries. 

This panel will address the impact cannabis policy has and could have on the economic vitality, stability and health of local communities and the state. 

Current Speakers on this panel include:

Policy & Politics

Current drug policy shows precisely how a patchwork of temporary fixes can lead to profound confusion and unintended consequences. And in the case of Coats v. Dish Network, that patchwork also has a real life victim: Brandon Coats.

- Newsweek

Local, National & International Cannabis Policy and Politics

The implications of cannabis politics and policy alongside continued prohibitions at local, regional, State, and Federal scales are expansive. They include racial and economic justice outcomes, successful new legal and medical State initiatives, and new people and perspectives coming to the Federal Government. This panel will focus on the implementation paradigm in our region and how our policies will influence and impact progressive cannabis policy across the country and world.

Current Speakers on this panel include: