my story

I fell in love with California as a nine-year-old boy when I visited San Diego with my father in 1976. There was something magical in the air I had never felt before in my hometown of Washington, D.C. I decided then that I would go to college in California, move my entire family there, and create a new life in the Golden State.

After high school, I made my first move to California by attending Chapman University in Orange. I brought one suitcase of clothes, some books and school supplies, and a half-pound of cannabis to sell in the dorms. I wanted to have fun in school but I was also hungry to learn and make a big impact on the world.

I proceeded to have a stellar college experience in both academics and weed. I was an honor student, served in the student senate all four years; was the student representative of the University Standards Committee; received the Henry Kemp Blair Award, which was the highest honor a graduating senior could receive in Communications/Theatre; and was the runner-up to the Cheverton Trophy, the top award for a graduating senior at the university.

I also used proceeds from my cannabis sales to fund alternative theatre and performance art on campus, as well as political activism with the campus Peace Club. I eventually formed my own campus organization, Chapman Representatives for Artistic Freedom and Talent (CRAFT), which still exists today, and gives a voice to progressive artists who learn within a more conservative campus at Chapman.

My acting career began to take off in college when I appeared on the national television program, Superior Court; I was a cast member in the award-winning play, Marat/Sade, at F.A.T.E. in 1987-88; and I was in the Grove Shakespeare production of King Lear in the summer of 1988.

After graduating Chapman and doing small theatre in Los Angeles, in the fall of 1990 I was accepted into the MFA Acting Program at the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco, where two important things happened: I moved to the Bay Area and my brother Steve introduced me to a local weed legend named Dennis Peron, who put me up in his house.

I spent two years studying by day, selling cannabis and doing political activism by night. This was the height of the AIDS crisis, and Dennis Peron and Brownie Mary were just starting their journey with the Cannabis Buyers Clubs and the ballot initiatives in San Francisco to legalize medical cannabis in the city. I did what I could as a student in these early efforts, but my acting career also began to take flight when I was accepted into ACT as an intern in the inaugural season of Artistic Director Carey Perloff.

I appeared in plays on the ACT main stage, including The Pope And The Witch, A Christmas Carol, The Dutchess Of Malfi, Cyrano De Bergerac, and Dinner at Eight. This experience taught me that the American regional theatre was not a place I could have the kind of impact I wanted on society. I found myself performing for the wealthy and privileged, which did not conform to the vision I had for positive social change. After helping to legalize medical cannabis in S.F. in 1992 and earning my MFA, I decided to pivot out of acting and concentrate full time on cannabis.

Joining my older brother, Steve, I moved back to my hometown of Washington, D.C., where I worked on several cannabis projects full time. Ecolution, Inc., was the first American hemp company to make 100% hemp denim jeans since Levi Straus in the 1800s. This company sold hemp clothes and other products all over the world to the tune of $1 million in annual sales and proved the concept that hemp could be a more sustainable alternative to cotton. I was a model and public face for that company.

My brother and I also began work on Initiative 59, which was a ballot measure to legalize medical cannabis in the city of Washington, D.C. I played a major role fundraising and managing the team that gathered the necessary signatures to get on the ballot. After several efforts and lawsuits, Initiative 59 passed in November of 1998 with 69% of the vote, which was the largest margin of victory for cannabis at the ballot box ever at that time. We financed all this entrepreneurship and activism with cannabis sales, as we worked mightily to change the laws we were forced to break in order to get medicine to the people.

I felt increasingly restless in D.C. after this victory and wanted to return to California. So I headed out west to Los Angeles, hoping to join the nascent medical cannabis industry and get back to storytelling with big plans to write a screenplay with Steve. The strategy was for Steve and our mother to join me shortly after completing the screenplay, finally realizing my dream of moving my family to California.

But law enforcement interrupted that plan when Steve got busted just outside D.C. with a large load of cannabis.

My family and I lost everything and were forced to start over. Steve had a legal case to get through. Our parents were traumatized. Houses were put up to bail Steve out. It was not safe to continue to make a living from cannabis. We had to shut down for a while. The family had to rebuild.

I stayed in Los Angeles and got some work teaching in disadvantaged public schools, culminating with teaching at my alma mater–Chapman University–where I worked in both the film and theatre department. I was also going back and forth to Washington, D.C., as my brother and I worked through the legal case, renovated and prepared to sell the family home, and get Steve and our mother out to California for a new beginning.

It took a few years for me and Steve to rebuild on the West Coast. We began to really regroup in California when the City of Oakland decided to be the first municipality to officially license cannabis retail to ensure the city was not overrun with operators, post Prop 215. After about a year and a half of planning, searching for properties, working with the City, applying for the license, renovating and building, and raising the funds to operate, Harborside was born on October 3, 2006.

The vision for Harborside was radically different from other dispensary models at that time. There were no regulations of dispensaries, as the state legislature failed to do their job and regulate them. Oakland became the first to do so. Most dispensaries in 2005 were run by either well-intentioned activists, or criminals using Prop 215 as a shield to move bulk out the back door. In both cases, dispensaries were dark, often had bars on the windows, security guards without uniforms or training, budtenders who were poorly on-boarded, often cannabis was in unsanitary packaging, and it was difficult for everyday people to feel comfortable in them.

Steve and I wanted to change all that and create an environment wherein all walks of life felt good. We wanted open windows to let light in. We wanted barcodes on products so Harborside could track them in their POS system; we wanted well-trained budtenders who deeply understood the products; we wanted a larger selection of products than what was available at that time; and we wanted to create a healing and learning center where patients could activate their activism, heal their bodies and minds, and access cannabis medicine for free if they were living in poverty.

My job was to take this enormous vision that had never been done before and make it operational. The experience with Ecolution, Inc., helped me somewhat. But I went to acting school not business school. I had spent most of my cannabis career as an activist and underground operator, and I had to learn how to be a leader in a retail environment that was open to the public 361 days a year. I got to work operating the business on the day to day, and learning everything I could about management and leadership so I could pull it off.

I read every management and leadership book I could get my hands on. I took classes at night at the UC Berkeley Extension. I found mentors and hired other professionals from outside cannabis to assist–mostly family members who had worked at places like Nordstrom, as it was not possible to recruit these professionals into cannabis at that time. These measures worked and I was able to handle the growth of the business, incorporate new ideas into the model, like lab testing with Steep Hill Labs (another first), child-resistant packaging for edibles, and a formal training program developed by a third party, among many other initiatives I oversaw.

Harborside began to be noticed by the media and the world. Steve started the important work of building the industry with the ArcView Group, while I continued to run the daily operations of Harborside. This one-two punch allowed us to have an even greater impact, as cannabis law reform began to sweep the nation and new states came online that needed an industry and angel investors to fund it.

In 2010, a television producer and the Discovery Channel approached Harborside about doing the first cannabis reality TV show. We were a little nervous that doing so would attract the attention of the federal government and the DEA. But we decided that informing the world about Harborside was of greater benefit than the risks. We believed that the program had the potential to pave the way for other states and communities to legalize and regulate cannabis.

Weed Wars premiered in December of 2011 on the Discovery Channel and was viewed by more than five million viewers over its four episodes. The program then was on Netflix for two years and watched by millions all over the globe, inspiring a worldwide movement and making Harborside and the DeAngelos household names.

In the summer of 2012, the federal government attacked Harborside in a civil asset forfeiture legal action. They wanted to close Harborside down. It seemed our worst fears regarding Weed Wars were being realized. But we did not close down voluntarily as many others had done with similar attempts by the feds to shut dispensaries in California. We decided to take the fight to court. After many battles, the federal government finally relented and dropped the case in the spring of 2016. Harborside had won, and was still operating and serving patients every day.

But the fight had taken a toll on the business. It constrained the ability of Harborside to grow as rapidly as envisioned. Harborside was also in a fight with the IRS regarding an obscure tax code, 280e, and was racking up millions of dollars in taxes and penalties as the case wound its way through Tax Court. We felt these were important fights to wage on behalf of the entire industry and so they soldiered on. The 280e case is currently being appealed to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, which has yet to rule.

As adult-use legalization failed with Proposition 19 in 2014, I helped form the California Cannabis Industry Association (CCIA) and am a founding board member of the organization. I understood that the community needed to be better organized so the vote would succeed the next time. Just two years after Prop. 19 failed, CCIA and I played a big role in the passage of Prop. 64–which won in 2016 by 56% of the vote. Our community had once again won at the ballot box. A new day was dawning for cannabis in California and for the growth of Harborside.

After this historic win, I knew that the time was coming for a new generation of leaders to take over the daily operations of Harborside. I’d been at it for over 10 years, and it was time for new challenges and a new leadership team for Harborside. I mentored, trained and developed the next generation of leaders for Harborside, many of them women, and I worked to transition a new executive team into the organization so the company could finally get the financing it needed to grow. Today Harborside is publicly traded on the Canadian Stock Exchange and has emerged from all the battles stronger than ever. Once again, Steve and I led a team of people to a new day.

I showed that I could develop myself and overcome the most difficult obstacles with a smile on my face and passion in my heart. My onstage and on-camera training came full circle with Weed Wars. Harborside beat the feds and went public. My family was with me on the west coast. At long last, I had made my California dream come true.

Today, I’m working on creating new mythologies for cannabis in pop culture, getting all cannabis prisoners out everywhere, and helping other cannabis people realize their dreams.