People come to us because we have already made the mistakes and learned from them. We help those with the desire, money and business savvy and want to get into our industry but need the "know how" to do so. We have consulted in over 40 states and have approximately 30 clients across the US. We are really picking up steam with this company and branching out to Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland, Jamaica and even Puerto Rico.

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Cultivating and Dispensing Medical and Recreational Marijuana is Big Business

Interview with Medicine Man CEO, Andy Williams

My guest today is Andy Williams, co-proprietor of Medicine Man, in Denver, Colorado.

Joan Brunwasser: Welcome to OpEdNews, Andy. What kind of operation are you running?

Andy Williams: I am currently the CEO of Medicine Man, Medicine Man Technologies and a principal partner in a new venture called MX.

Medicine Man is our brick and mortar dispensary and cultivation site. We house a 40,000 sq. ft. cultivation facility and the company was founded by my brother Pete and me back in 2009. We currently have three dispensary locations and employ about 60 people. We are experiencing enormous growth at Medicine Man and look forward to the future.

Medicine Man Technologies is our consultancy that helps those with the desire, money and business savvy and want to get into our industry but need the "know how" to do so. We provide the cannabis "know how". It's a publicly traded company on the OTCQB under the symbol MDCL. We have consulted in over 40 states and have approximately 30 clients across the United States. We are really picking up steam with this company and branching out to Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland, Jamaica and even Puerto Rico.

MX is a phyto pharmaceutical company that has been created to develop innovative cannabis products, using accepted pharmacological formulation techniques produced in a pharma-grade environment. We want to create identifiable and replicable dosage forms for human use. Our goal is to help improve the human condition and the quality of life for those suffering from various conditions. We do this by taking cannabis from a therapeutic plant and transform it into an effective treatment.

JB: You've certainly come a long way since 2009. What initially got you interested in this field? Were you exploring uncharted territory at the time?

AW: My brother Pete and I have been lifelong entrepreneurs. He was always a great inventor and truly cares about helping people. In fact, he produced cannabis out of his home and was a caretaker for those who needed medicinal cannabis. He did all of this before we started the business. When the Ogden Memo of 2009 came out, we got together and decided to create the business. We took out a loan from our first investor, who happened to be our mother and from that, a business was born.

JB: Where would we be without mothers who believe in us? What's the Ogden Memo? And were there lots of hoops to jump through in order to get your business off the ground? [I'm assuming we're talking about medicinal marijuana here.]

AW: Yes, it was strictly medical marijuana at that time. The memo gave guidance to law enforcement officials on how to handle enforcing marijuana laws in states that have adopted cannabis. The memo basically said that it was up to the states to make the determination on whether or not cannabis should be legal and that resources wouldn't be spent investigating those who were conducting business in accordance with the state regulations.

As for hoops, there were so many hoops that if I knew then how many hoops I'd have to jump through before starting the business, I probably would have been thinking twice about entering it. Thank goodness I didn't know then and was able to take it step by step. I remember days when we had to move money from the facility to our bank and we would have to take it ourselves. Or the days when we had to pay employees with cash because we couldn't have a payroll/check system. Just getting the business going was quite an experience but I love what I do. Every day I get to wake up and help people by providing them with a plant that they use in one way or another to help themselves - talk about rewarding!

JB: That is a wonderful way to start the day; You're one lucky guy. I've read about the complications of not being able to have a payroll/check system. Lots of purveyors were put at risk because they had to keep all that cash on hand, with no place to stash it safely. That must have been unnerving. How did that issue finally resolve itself?

AW: Well, eventually we were able to establish partnerships with banks and our banker now has become a personal friend. We've come a long way with banking and I'm thankful for the friends we've been able to make in and outside of the industry. As far as payroll goes, we kept reaching out to different companies to see if they would allow us to use their system(s). Most declined but that also began to change as more and more states began adopting some form of legal cannabis. We now have a payroll system and I think that's because businesses see the legitimacy of the industry and the money that it produces.

JB: There've been lots of growing pains in the odyssey of making pot available for medical and recreational purposes. At what point did you expand beyond medical marijuana and how did that development affect your business?

AW: In 2014 when recreational marijuana was allowed, we immediately saw the opportunity that it afforded our business. We made the transition as soon as we could. I remember people standing outside of our shop the night before, waiting for the doors to open to be able to take part in the end of the ban that had been placed on marijuana for so long. Everyone was so happy and excited to be a part of this movement that was going on and opening the doors to recreational "adult use" consumers made the industry explode in Colorado! Medicine Man is vertically integrated so we grow and sell all of the flower that we produce. We didn't have an issue keeping up with demand but those who are just a dispensary are at the mercy of the cultivators. And that had an impact on businesses back then. As a business, we were excited to generate the revenue that came from adult use consumers but even more than that, it was great to see the cohesion and relief that it brought to so many around us.

JB: At what point did you commit to being vertically integrated? And was that more complicated initially?

AW: In the beginning, we were mainly doing cultivation. My brother Pete is a long time cultivator and somewhat of a mad scientist. We were growing all of this product and trying to sell it to what I believe were Russian mobsters (of course, this is just my belief as I didn't know if they truly were or not). They would tell us that our prices were not very good and that we had terrible weed. So we went back and came up with a new price structure and gave them a new strain to try and at that point they said, "We've got a good thing here. Don't take this to anyone else." My brother told them to "eff off" and that we were going to put them out of business. We then decided that we needed to have dispensaries to push the product out. We knew that if we were just cultivators that we were at the mercy of the dispensaries' ability to buy the product consistently. If we were just dispensaries, then we were at the mercy of the cultivators to sell the marijuana at a good price and to consistently have product. So, we decided that we would be both. Not having product on hand as a dispensary means that you lose the loyal customers that you have worked so hard for and that is something we didn't want to have to worry about. On top of that, we wanted to consistently produce quality marijuana at a great price, with excellent customer service and that's what we strive for every day.

JB: How's it been working so closely with your brother? How do you manage without bringing in old issues or stepping on one another's toes?

AW: It's been good. We complement one another quite well. He told me a long time ago that he would stay engaged at Medicine Man as long as he didn't have to deal with any "business stuff". So I agreed to take on most of the business activities. My sister Sally is our president and does a great job at being the backbone of our dispensary and cultivation operations. We all work collaboratively to keep the business innovative and chugging forward. Mom is also very much involved in the business and works closely with Sally on the numbers and financials.

JB: It really is a family business! Cool. How active is Medicine Man Technologies, the branch that coaches other businesses on how to avoid pitfalls, speed bumps and landmines in order to succeed at this?

AW: Medicine Man Technologies is very active. Most recently, we are working with about six active clients in Pennsylvania and due to the recent legislation in Ohio, we have a lot of interest coming out of that market as well. We are also working with clients in Puerto Rico, Jamaica and Maryland. We have won licenses in Illinois and Nevada and also host monthly seminars that sell out every time. Medicine Man Technologies, as I previously mentioned, is also publicly traded on the OTCQB market under symbol MDCL. With our public offering, we are working to find other businesses that fit under the umbrella of our "brand warehouse" to build a solid investment foundation. People come to us because we have already made the mistakes and learned from them. We are leaders in the consulting market and people know the name and the brand that we represent so they come to us for expert guidance on how to best operate and survive.

JB: I freely admit that I've not been following the issue of legalizing marijuana very closely and am so glad that you are filling me in. As we talked, I just consulted a Wikipedia map that shows how the various states are handling it. It seems as if the "best" outcome is for a state to totally decriminalize. That way, anyone who wants marijuana, whether for medical or recreational purposes, will be able to get it. On the other hand, that approach has only been accomplished by four states, with the vast majority finding some middle ground or rejecting the notion altogether. Am I oversimplifying?

AW: You're obviously correct about the amount of states who have allowed for full adult use vs. just medical. However, medical seems to be the first step in that direction for most states. They begin by testing the market and then move to adult use (rec) after they see all of the opportunities that it affords the state. Right now, 25 states have adopted some form of legal cannabis. That's a great start to getting the country moving in the right direction.

Yes, it probably moves slower than most of us would like but we take the progress anywhere we can get it and 25 states is nothing to scoff at when you consider the years and years of negative publicity that were placed on the plant. So many other states are working tirelessly to get a bill through that will allow for a form of cannabis legalization. Florida is an excellent example of this because they shot down the initial vote because it didn't reach a certain amount of votes the first time. Now, the Florida market seems to be heating back up to adopt marijuana legalization and I think they are ready.

JB: It's an exciting process. And I love that you've been able to mentor entrepreneurs who can learn from your experience. Now that marijuana has been legal at least in some places for a while, what have we seen in terms of measuring negative effects on communities, like impaired driving, for instance, or anything else that people feared?

AW: Well, communities have been able to gain greatly from the legalization. Colorado collected around $135 million in 2015 alone in tax revenue and $40 million dollars of it went to schools. Also, there still haven't been any deaths attributed to marijuana usage and opioid overdoses have decreased by more than 28% in Colorado since the legalization of marijuana here.

The industry itself continues to get push back from the federal government by having the IRS come after businesses with the punitive 280e regulations that do not allow business deductions associated with the sale of a schedule-1 drug. This makes the effective tax rate for cannabis dispensaries much higher. In addition, the IRS is now targeting the industry with an obscure rule called Form 8300. As you are aware, banking hasn't been allowed in this industry because of federal regulations. Transactions for products and materials had to be done using "cash only" purchases. Form 8300 is an esoteric document that is required when a transaction of more than $10,000 occurs. In the past, the IRS has abused farmers and ranchers for not completing this form and this practice was stopped by congress. Because cannabis is federally illegal, the IRS does not have to follow congress' guidance with regard to not using this aggressively against businesses and as such, is using this form as strategy to further attack this industry.

JB: We can hope that the IRS attitude will improve and evolve as more states legalize pot in some form or other. What haven't we talked about yet that you'd like to before we wrap this up?

AW: This is a hard one to answer. There's so much going on that I'd like to talk about but just can't right now. The legitimacy of the industry is being recognized and we see this with Microsoft's recent purchase of a tracking system. New doors of opportunity continue to open each day and I think we are learning a lot about all of the positive impacts that cannabis has on the economy. Even more than that, we are learning about the healing powers of cannabis and there is so much still to figure out with regard to research. That's why I'm really excited about MX and the work that we will be doing in the future. Stay tuned....

JB: Will do. Thanks so much for talking with me, Andy. It's been fascinating; I've learned so much. Best of luck with Medicine Man!

AW: Thank you. I appreciate you taking the time.

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Medicine man website

Medicine Man Technologies

Authors Website: http://www.opednews.com/author/author79.html

Authors Bio:

Joan Brunwasser is a co-founder of Citizens for Election Reform (CER) which since 2005 existed for the sole purpose of raising the public awareness of the critical need for election reform. Our goal: to restore fair, accurate, transparent, secure elections where votes are cast in private and counted in public. Because the problems with electronic (computerized) voting systems include a lack of transparency and the ability to accurately check and authenticate the vote cast, these systems can alter election results and therefore are simply antithetical to democratic principles and functioning.



Since the pivotal 2004 Presidential election, Joan has come to see the connection between a broken election system, a dysfunctional, corporate media and a total lack of campaign finance reform. This has led her to enlarge the parameters of her writing to include interviews with whistle-blowers and articulate others who give a view quite different from that presented by the mainstream media. She also turns the spotlight on activists and ordinary folks who are striving to make a difference, to clean up and improve their corner of the world. By focusing on these intrepid individuals, she gives hope and inspiration to those who might otherwise be turned off and alienated. She also interviews people in the arts in all their variations - authors, journalists, filmmakers, actors, playwrights, and artists. Why? The bottom line: without art and inspiration, we lose one of the best parts of ourselves. And we're all in this together. If Joan can keep even one of her fellow citizens going another day, she considers her job well done.


When Joan hit one million page views, OEN Managing Editor, Meryl Ann Butler interviewed her, turning interviewer briefly into interviewee. Read the interview here.

While the news is often quite depressing, Joan nevertheless strives to maintain her mantra: "Grab life now in an exuberant embrace!"


Joan has been Election Integrity Editor for OpEdNews since December, 2005. Her articles also appear at Huffington Post, RepublicMedia.TV and Scoop.co.nz.