The Account Executive for HQ is a certified platinum talker. As the former No. 1 sales rep for long-distance carrier MCI’s Bilingual Division and a veteran of the tough-as-nails construction industry, she’s honed her skills in some of the most competitive arenas imaginable.

If you told Diane Willis in the early ‘90s that PT Bag Co., her humble family business selling small zip-loc baggies for carrying “jewelry” and “herbal blends” by the gram (we know what they were really for), would stand the test of time and be kicking ass more than three decades later, she’d probably laugh and tell you she was just trying to get through the day.

Picture this: It’s the early ‘90s, a time when the good herb was very much in the shadows—a subculture thriving behind closed doors. Wendy Campbell is a small-town girl from Ohio. She is introduced to something even more out of the ordinary: cannabis.

Rebecca Abraham is yet another extraordinary human facing another heroic task. A nurse by trade—and more importantly, by inclination —Abraham is working to convince the relatively conservative American medical community that cannabis does indeed have a role to play in clinical practice.

Julietta Neas is the owner of a thriving group of dispensaries known in these parts as Amnesia Dispensaries and Accessories LLC, a homegrown business that now includes 4 locations and an edibles bakery called Sunbaked.

Live pipe-making demonstrations are just one of the ways shop owner Treasure Rose is expanding the idea of what a smoke shop can be.

Just as spring was starting to come out greenly and the mulberry trees were bursting with buds in these parts, I talked to renowned author, documentarian, television producer, and plant guru, Sharon Letts.

The Last Prisoner Project's Director of Advocacy tells her story.