The New Chardonnay by Heather Cabot

Author:Heather Cabot [Cabot, Heather]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Crown
Published: 2020-08-11T00:00:00+00:00

BETH STAVOLA HAD survived a rocky initiation into the emerging rough-and-tumble world of medical marijuana in Arizona, and now the money was finally rolling in. Keeping the business going was far from easy, though. There were fires to put out nearly every day. From ferreting out double-dealing employees, to figuring out creative ways to safely handle all of the profits from the cash-only business, to lab testing the harvest to make sure it was high quality and free of mold, she was on call 24/7 even as she continued to fly back and forth to her six children and husband in New Jersey.

Of course, she had her new posse behind her: her trusted attorney Mel McDonald and ex–Secret Service agent Don Tucker advising her on security and helping her deepen ties with local police and politicians, as well as Jason Gully, a well-connected former dispensary owner from Montana who wanted to do things her way—strictly by the book. Through Jason, she gained the trust and loyalty of a handful of cannabis experts who had spent years working on the fringes. Beth paid these mentors handsomely, sometimes even bought out their businesses just to bring them into the fold. For example, she recruited Aubrey Bradley—whose hydroponic lighting company had supplied Beth with equipment for her very first grow house in Mesa—onto her team to tutor her on everything there was to know about cultivating and manufacturing pot products. This was how she learned about the surging popularity of those potent oils extracted from the plant, and the delicate chemical processes used to isolate the most active cannabinoids.

In June 2013, a whole new Green Rush was in motion just a short plane ride away on the other side of the Grand Canyon. Nevada’s legislature, controlled by the Democrats, had just approved a controversial bill to allow medical marijuana dispensaries to open in the state. When she heard the news, Beth couldn’t resist the challenge.

“I was, like, ‘Wow, you know what? Vegas is this big shiny city, and, you know, I want to go in, and see what I can get,’ ” she recalled.

What was particularly tantalizing to Beth, and to other power players who decided to make a run at Nevada’s medical market, was the unusual prospect of tapping into the more than forty-two million tourists who flock every year to Sin City’s glittering casinos, trendy nightclubs, and star-studded shows. Unlike anywhere else in the United States, if you had a medical card issued out of state, you would still be able to legally buy weed in Nevada. This meant the potential customer base—and potential profit margin—was staggering, according to Jay Matos, an early cannabis lobbyist who helped pass the medical law. Moreover, unlike states that only allowed the sale of smokable bud, the sale of concentrates would be allowed in Nevada, too. And making those increasingly in-demand products like vape cartridges, waxy cartridges for dabbing, and edibles, would require hundreds of thousands of pounds of marijuana. He estimated that a pound

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