Luna Stower said:
“Women need to speak up, step up, and woman-up to take up the space that men do.”
Describe yourself and what you do.
I help manage the pipe-line of marketing and sales, from day-to-day retail operations with our store/dispensary partners, train folks on compliance, and ensure all products and packaging abide by the ever-evolving state standards, working closely with everyone from lab techs and distribution to ensure timely and accurate deliveries and legal processing of returns. I am a published author and journalist, with pieces in DOPE, mg Magazine, Sensi, and HelloMD.com, and have interviewed headliners at popular cannabis events for Arts & Culture sections, as well as hosting Green Room services for visiting influencers and artists with product and education.
I also help host and co-host events that promote our amazing array of local brands, from high-end infused sushi dinners to large industry bashes and pop-up dab bars and education booths at events hosted by our partners. I also helped develop our apprenticeship program that was designed to connect fellows of the Hood Incubator in Oakland to training in Cannabis Extracts via our lab chemists and in-depth curriculum. I conduct multiple in-store demonstrations and promotions weekly, across the Bay Area, and the state, to inform new and old patients alike about how to use cannabis extracts, in both vaping and smoking forms, as well as our ingestibles (Mind Tricks Toffee and Dablicator oils). I’m also the former co-chair of the Women Grow Bay Area chapter.
What is your vision for your professional cannabis endeavors?
I have been working with cannabis informally since middle school, which is when Prop 215 passed and we had access to medical cannabis through community members and friends. Formally, I left the classroom to enter the Cannabis space in 2015. I have a BA in Feminist studies from UCSC, and a Masters in Teaching and CA Credential in Spanish and English from the University of SF, which has helped me immensely in my endeavors to educate patients and support new consumers about our products and the science/spirit of the plant more generally.
My mission is to influence patients and adult consumers alike to find their ideal method of consumption, product, and dose to replace the other medications they’re on that may be having negative effects. Ideally, I’d like to live in a society that uses a natural, ancient healing plant and has moved beyond opioids and anti-depressants with CBD and other cannabinoids. I believe that all cannabis industry professionals should have a social justice component and ecological bend in both their business plans, mission, and company culture — not in token ways for PR’s sake, but authentic, genuine expressions of protection and care for the people and planet.
What is your personal cannabis origin story?
I attended college at UC Santa Cruz, a stoner Mecca that has more bongs and 420 sessions than booze and frat parties. Getting high and studying with other peaceful stoners sparked my spiritual and intellectual growth, connecting us tree huggin’ scholars to a pure and powerful plant.
But my ignorant hippie bubble popped at DPA, ACLU, and SSDP conferences that exposed the unjust “War on Drugs,” its casualties, and mass incarceration of the poor, people of color, and “social dissidents.” No longer about my right to smoke, my critical lens shifted radically to this being a matter of freedom, life, and death. Activated by the race and class disparities in sentencing and policing, I wrote disruptive curriculum for a course on the Drug War, bringing undergrad groups into adult and juvenile prisons.
When “real life” hit, I found myself with a teaching credential and Master’s in Education, and my career path went into my into a very cannabis-unfriendly space: urban public schools. The stigma overshadowed my Prop 215 rights; my fear of being “outed” to students ended my canna-activism, but my inner fire for decriminalization burned-on.
From Secretly-Smoking Schoolteacher to Active Cannabis Advocate, my “coming-out” wasn’t easy. Reclaiming my passion for pot and its widely-celebrated healing powers elevates my mind and purpose as both a patient and freedom-fighter.
What is your Superpower?
Empathy and intuition, like a good witch!
What has been your greatest obstacle in this industry or with your business to date?
Dishonesty and greed–and I am tackling it by being the bigger/better person/company and setting the standards ourselves through positive models of integrity in everything I do, no matter how large, small, or threatening it may be. It is a daily struggle to set a high bar and watch others make money by cutting corners and being dishonest. 😦
I believe that all cannabis industry professionals should have a social justice component and ecological bend in both their business plans, mission, and company culture–not in token ways for PR’s sake, but authentic, genuine expressions of protection and care for the people and planet.
What is your advice for women in the cannabis industry?
To have more ownership and management positions of power to enact true and systemic change in our society, from cannabis and business, to social justice, and way beyond.
Women need to speak up, step up, and woman-up to take up the space that men do. No one is giving us any power or sway in decisions unless we take it–with grace and humility, of course. Also need to know their right to self-determination: to work in situations and in teams that build on their strengths and have a pathway to upward mobility both professionally and personally.
Connect with Luna Stower:
Facebook: Luna Beth
Instagram: @Luna_Stower , @team.jetty, @jettyextracts
Attend Ellementa Cannabis Wellness Gatherings for Women in Your City
her canna life: high-minded women 