An ordained rabbi finds his calling in cannabis. Rabbi James Kahn was responsible for developing Holistic Industries corporate responsibility, a platform built upon 4 central pillars: social equity (repairing damage caused by the War on Drugs), diversity, cannabis education, and community service/philanthropy. As Executive Director of Liberty Cannabis Cares (LCC), he joins Karson Humiston to explain why his responsibility to integrate the mission of Liberty Cannabis Cares into every aspect of Holistic’s business is so important. Produced by PodConx Proud To Work In Cannabis - https://podconx.com/podcasts/proud-to-work-in-cannabis Karson Humiston - https://podconx.com/guests/karson-humiston Vangst - https://vangst.com/ Rabbi James Kahn - https://podconx.com/guests/james-kahn Holistic Industries - https://www.holisticindustries.com/
An ordained rabbi finds his calling in cannabis.
Rabbi James Kahn was responsible for developing Holistic Industries corporate responsibility, a platform built upon 4 central pillars: social equity (repairing damage caused by the War on Drugs), diversity, cannabis education, and community service/philanthropy. As Executive Director of Liberty Cannabis Cares (LCC), he joins Karson Humiston to explain why his responsibility to integrate the mission of Liberty Cannabis Cares into every aspect of Holistic’s business is so important.
Proud To Work In Cannabis - https://podconx.com/podcasts/proud-to-work-in-cannabis
Karson Humiston - https://podconx.com/guests/karson-humiston
Vangst - https://vangst.com/
Rabbi James Kahn - https://podconx.com/guests/james-kahn
Holistic Industries - https://www.holisticindustries.com/
James Kahn: [00:00:00] I'm James and I'm proud to work in cannabis for the better.
Karson Humiston: Welcome to the proud to work in cannabis podcast. I'm your host, Carson homicide and the founder of banks. And today we are so excited to have James Caan. James is the director of Liberty cannabis cares at holistic industries. One of the leading multi-state operators. We've been lucky enough to be working with holistic industries for the last few years.
And we are so, so, so excited to have James here today, James. Well,
James Kahn: Thank you, Carson. Total pleasure to be here.
Karson Humiston: To kick it off. James, give us a quick intro on your background and how you decided to make the jump into the cannabis industry.
James Kahn: Well, So quickly, cause it's a little complicated, but my background is I'm a rabbi. I spent six years in rabbinical school and after medical school, I I did a bunch of different things in the Jewish world. But, but really I was a chaplain , I worked in social services. At the same time [00:01:00] I was doing that, my family opened up a mom and pop dispensary in DC, actually the first medical dispensary in DC.
And so as I was doing my rabbi thing, I'm watching my family open up the store and I'm part of it. And I'm seeing the impact that they are having on lives. And that's why I became a rabbi in the first place is because I wanted to help people. Better. And and and I saw the cannabis was doing just that.
And at certain point I realized I could probably make just as much of a difference in cannabis and help just as many people, if not more honestly, than I was doing in my work as a rabbi. so I realized my rabbinic super power of kind of helping normalize uncomfortable topics or things that people don't feel comfortable talking about publicly that I could help de-stigmatize them.
And and I really could be a a force for good in the industry. And so I made the jump
Karson Humiston: And when you made the jump, did you go straight to holistic
James Kahn: Yeah. So, I knew I couldn't work in a small dispensary space, my parents and my [00:02:00] brother and my wife, all of whom were part of of our medical cannabis dispensary in DC. But I had made a lot of connections just through the dispensary in DC in the few years prior to making the jump.
And one of those connections with was with Josh Anderson. Who's the CEO of holistic industries and who helped shape the regulations in the DC medical program. So Josh had a independent mom and pop grow in DC and at a certain point, Josh decided to take that model of holistic industries and expand.
And when he did, he looked around and saw Tacoma's success in the way that we did business. And he saw a lot of his own values and the way my family was running the company. And he asked me , to bring those values to holistic and to help them establish holistic outside of of DC and, and specifically to open up his first.
Dispensary in Maryland, the first dispensary anywhere, but it just so happened to be in Maryland. So I worked with Josh on the applications and it was a long story, but it eventually became that we opened up the first Liberty dispensary in Maryland. I ran that store for a year.
But it was never really my [00:03:00] intention to be the GM of a retail dispensary. It's not really my skillset, although I loved doing it really loved envisioning what a dispensary could look like and what it could be, and really, Recognizing that the medicine starts with the interaction between the guides and the budtenders and the patients.
, but after about a year, I started working on more applications helping us expand beyond. Maryland. And in these applications, I'm seeing some amazing promises, made some amazing, really intentions to be to have a transformative impact on the communities , that holistic wanting to enter.
And so I spoke to Josh about, this is going to take a team of people to accomplish these goals. And he said, you're right. And I said, I'd like to have that team. And he gave me the job and that's how I became the head of community outreach and corporate social responsibility.
Karson Humiston: And I'm super excited to dig into the role a little bit, but talk to us a little bit about holistic it's. It's amazing that you were there for when they opened the first dispensary in Maryland and now [00:04:00] holistic is in multiple states. Very big scale. Bring us up to date on the status of holistic industries as a business.
James Kahn: when I joined holistic, I was, I think the 14th employee and, I've been with the company for almost four and a half years, and I think we just hit 800 employees. So it's been a wild ride. We're now in nine states and the district. We are a vertically integrated company, meaning we have dispensaries and grow processing facilities in , each of these states.
And really growing, not just through purchasing an M and a, , which is a very typical way for large cannabis companies to operate, but winning merit based licenses and really winning over communities , and, highlighting our model as distinct and the way that we engage with communities as distinct and it's been very successful.
Karson Humiston: And, the name of this podcast is proud to work in cannabis and I always joke that I don't hear very many people saying they're proud to work in oil and gas. , there's so many industries where you just would never wear a, [00:05:00] t-shirt saying proud to work in cannabis.
And when we think about the success of so many businesses, Businesses are so mission driven and it keeps employees and team members and communities all coming together and coming back every single day. Talk to us about the mission at holistic and how you have been part of building such a mission driven organization from day one.
And the impact that you believe leading from the mission from day one , has impacted your career and holistic success.
James Kahn: Wow. Great question. Big question. Well, first , let me just comment on. on your point that, that people are proud to work in Canada. This is, I think one of the things that I'm I find most compelling about the industry very few people are working in a cannabis dispensary because they just love retail.
And very few people are working in a cannabis cultivation facility because they love. Indoor windowless growing rooms because they love cannabis and they appreciate the impact. The transformative impact cannabis has on people's lives. So being able to leverage that in, in my work, trying to make an [00:06:00] impact in these communities. It's just an easy, and it's been fun and it's inspiring every day. , and we all know the mission , of. Help people. Right? So, I had a patient in Pennsylvania reach out to us recently and he sent the most beautiful email talking about how he served 13 years in the military.
And he had really kind of forgotten what it felt like to feel comfortable. He has Crohn's he has PTSD and a host of other issues going on. And he said until he had tried our carts he just hadn't. Comfortable in, in years, one to thank us for that. So that little thank you was just so meaningful to our teams.
But, beyond even just the impact we have on individual patients which is really at the core of holistic, , the way I met Josh genders was, was really got to know him was because we had a, a mother and her son Lisa and Jackson Laden, who were very great cannabis advocates in DC.
Jackson was a young kid at the time, but he [00:07:00] was DC's first pediatric cannabis patient. He had epilepsy and Lisa, his mom I was flying to Colorado and California to bring back tinctures rich and THCA and CBD. And she was doing that at the risk of her own professional life and really her safety, she could end up in jail.
And so when DCS program came alive it was a very limited program. One of the most restrictive programs in the country, in fact, When you want a license to grow in DC at that time, you only were allowed to grow 95 plants. So when you're only allowed to grow 95 plants, and that includes the mothers and the cuttings, and it's nothing, and you're going to plant the most economically viable strains , what's going to be able to support the business.
And it really wasn't CBD rich, strict. But but that's what Jackson needed. And so, nobody was willing to grow CBD in DC at that time because of the way it was structured. So Lisa went around to each of the growers and my family brought her and Jackson to go see Josh and w within a month, Josh had CBD plants growing[00:08:00] at our DC grow.
And he hired a scientist to work with Jackson's doctors at children's hospital. And we ended up creating a proprietary blend thinks you're a CBD tincture blend that we named after him. We call the Jackson's courage it's still being used to this day and provided to children in the district at no cost.
So that kind of captures some of what you're talking about. So, so it's,
Karson Humiston: unbelievable.
James Kahn: about people. Is in holistic's DNA. , and I think that's why I I've been able to really flourish and take off in my role at holistic. I've really just kind of capitalized on who Josh was as a person and who this company that he graded was becoming, which was a company.
He keeps attracted people that really were passionate about the plant and passionate about its ability to help people in very difficult moments of life. So that's one part of the answer. The other part of your question was ,
Karson Humiston: your role over the last four and a half years, as employee 14 to the business is now 800 employees. How has [00:09:00] your role evolved?
James Kahn: , as I mentioned, , we were just a single actually two licenses in DC both of them cultivation and both of them, 95 plants. So when I came in, it evolved from helping with the application in Maryland to to running our dispenser, kind of imagining our.
Dispensary experience. And I was at the time, this was, before COVID really seeing dispensary's as almost a third space, a place where people could come. And, we were often the best moment of that person's day was coming to the shop. We had people that could have easily purchased.
Enough product to take them through the month, but they wanted to shop every week or sometimes daily with us because that was their human interaction. Or , that was the place where they can be themselves and be real about what mattered to them and what they were struggling with and what pains they were having.
Where else can you go and share. , all the challenges that you're having and people actually listen and then try to help you and give you recommendations on , what might be helpful. And it just Recognizing the [00:10:00] relationships and placing relationships at the center of the dispensary experience was something , that we did in that first dispensary in Rockville.
And and then I got a chance to run it and to see come to life. And if anyone's ever had the experience of opening up a dispensary in the community or in a state that had not had cannabis beforehand, it takes a lot of work, trying to help the community feel comfortable and realize that the sky is not going to fall.
And that their teens will not be a, smoking joints more than they were before. And really that the best way to ensure the safety around cannabis is to regulate it. And the. The dispensary's are largely not associated with crime , and actually the opposite. So I got to run that shop and then and then I transitioned to this role as director of community outreach.
And really that was largely. John. I was really focused on going to communities that we were pursuing licenses and talking to them and letting them know about the way that holistic sets up community advisory boards, where we create a mechanism. Stakeholders [00:11:00] in the community to meet with holistic representatives on a regular basis to inform us of the challenges or concerns that the community is facing before they become like real problems.
Let's say there's smell, that's emanating from one of our grows , well, we can fix that. And also. What are the things that keep this community up at night? What are the challenges this community is facing? Is it homelessness? In one community in Massachusetts, their seniors were largely scattered around a large geographic area and they were struggling with loneliness.
There wasn't public transportation. Holistic funded a van that would provide free transportation to folks in this community. And it was one way of kind of winning over an elderly demographic within the community that was largely opposed to our presence there. We have a cultivation center and that community and it really helped show them that we are contributing.
Not just to jobs, we're now I think the largest employer in that community, but to the good and welfare of its citizens. , and when COVID hit and we stopped being able to do that transportation and bring [00:12:00] everybody together in a small van, $10,000 donation to purchase iPads hired someone who could help set them up in people's homes so that those folks could be FaceTiming with their grandkids or accessing telemedicine.
, that's a bit of what I do. And it's really become a core part of our culture at holistic. It's culture of caring, right? That's really kind of leveraging the fact that so many people care and are proud to work in cannabis.
Karson Humiston: I'm sure. A lot of people listening to this are like after listening to. I definitely want to work in cannabis.
What advice do you have to somebody considering the crossover into cannabis and what do you wish that you would have known before you joined the cannabis industry?
James Kahn: Wow. Well, one thing, a lot of people might be ruling out cannabis because they don't have experience there. There's Dublin really has a lot of experience in cannabis. And I think one of the things. Good cannabis companies are doing is that they're able to see the talents that folks who [00:13:00] have pursued other careers might have, and , to really benefit.
So for example, , the head of our marketing department at holistic was the CEO of a major international advertising agency. In fact, the CEO of an advertising agency that was responsible for bringing Viagra. And if anyone remembers life before Viagra it was pretty taboo to talk about at the time w what's the virtuous impotence.
And so this, this company recognized that impotence was a really loaded term and they came up with the phrase ed which stands for erectile dysfunction, but they called it. They hired Bob doll and all of a sudden, everyone's asking for this little blue pill and it's okay to talk about, in fact, it was, it's become part of popular culture.
So he has been essential, to. Really helping us break down barriers and walls that we faced with cannabis, where so many people who could benefit from it have, grown up with the war on drugs and just say, no, and this is your brain on drugs and are rightfully scared of cannabis because that's what they've been taught.
[00:14:00] And so we are breaking down those barriers and that's a great example of how someone's background, doesn't need to be in cannabis to make a difference, to make a real difference in the industry.
Karson Humiston: We always say, keep your career, change your industry, right? There's anything that you're doing in another industry.
likely those skills can be transferred into cannabis. And the reality is if there's 400,000 employees in the space today in five years from now, there's going to be a million employees.
There's 600,000 people that aren't in the cannabis industry right now that in five years from now, we'll be in the cannabis industry and they come from all different types of backgrounds, all different types of industries. And positions and there's a place for them in cannabis. my last question for you, James, is looking forward at the industry.
What is the impact that you hope that you bring and continue to bring? If you were looking back five years from now, what is one thing you're really looking forward to bringing to the cannabis and making an impact in the space?
James Kahn: , for those folks considering a [00:15:00] career in cannabis, in my humble opinion, it's a historic opportunity. To be part of history. How often do you get a chance to be part of the creation of a billion dollar industry? And we know that's, what cannabis is and what that industry looks like is still yet to be ultimately decided.
So for me, I hope my contribution to cannabis is to help cannabis become an industry that really reflects the values inherent in the plant itself. The values of generosity of connection to other folks of joy , and giving
cannabis is shared amongst folks in my life. It's been a connector. How do we create an industry that really reflects the values of those plants and how do we ensure that cannabis is a force for good, helping communities heal from damage done by cannabis prohibition, especially communities of color that suffered.
So, significantly and unjustly from cannabis laws. , I hope that I can make a difference in ensuring [00:16:00] that cannabis is looked at in, looking back 20 years from now as a force for good.
Karson Humiston: And for everybody listening that may want to join holistic industries, you can go to dot com and look up holistic industries. They have. Over 100 open positions across all different parts of their business. Amazing team. You'd have the chance to work with James with that. James, Thanks, so much for being on the show with us today.
It was amazing to have you, and we're super excited to continue watching your journey and watching holistic and continue to grow. So thank you, James.
James Kahn: Thanks, Carson, a pleasure. And I so appreciate what you guys do. And just thanks for having me on.