Steve DeAngelo - The Man behind the Manifesto
You know those rare moments in life where you get to meet a truly celebrated figure?
Someone whose face you’ve seen online & in print?
Someone who’s built up a worldwide following behind their work - and for one brief, shining moment you get to sit and chat with them?
How often do these real life meetings ever live up to the hype?
How often do we build up an impossible image of the celebrity in our own minds - that when we meet them in the flesh - it pales in comparison to the shining visage we’ve erected in our minds???
THIS was not the case as Anne & I had the great pleasure to find out - as we sat down for an hour to talk with the venerable Steve DeAngelo this past week.
We spent weeks e-mailing back and forth with his camp, reading his book, watching his Youtube videos and appearances - so that we could get good and ready for this talk with a man who has been on the Activist & Advocacy front of the Cannabis world for some 40 years.
For those not fully familiar with his work, Steve is the owner of the Harborside Health Center in Oakland, CA - the largest medical cannabis dispensary in the United States, serving over 200,000 patients.
Fortune Magazine has named him one of the top 7 most powerful people inside the Marijuana Industry today.
He’s written a terrific book about the history of cannabis, prohibition, and his own work inside this world - The Cannabis Manifesto.
And is also the co-founder and president of the Arcview Group - a company aimed at introducing bright, promising cannabis entrepreneurs to angel investors who can fund their work.
We speak to Steve about his path of Activism & Entrepreneurship (and why he sees them as mutually beneficial). About his own time & connection to our neck of the woods, inside the Emerald Triangle, and his own love of the culture we have built up here and the work of the legacy cannabis farmer.
He shares his thoughts on the unique challenges confronting our community and the tools he sees as key to staying vital & financially solvent in the tumultuous time to come.
He talks about the ways in which the Prohibition era programmed us toward a mentality that will not sustain us in the next iteration to come. And the shift he sees as critical to become viable in the new, legitimate marketplace.
And he offers us guidance on how to continue to affect the current paradigm surrounding cannabis. Moving, as he says, “out of the shadows & into the Light.”
And ultimately Steve guides back to the plant itself.
To those amongst us who are called to work with and cultivate it.
To use it reverently & as the healing, medicinal currency for which it is best suited.
To caretake the plant so that it can caretake us and our families and communities, and usher in the type of world we wish to inhabit…
We simply must be willing to sit & listen..
And trust that the way we will be made known.
We are deeply honored and proud to bring you this powerful talk from a great man.
Cheers.
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