The Future of Cannabis Science: An Interview with Jeff Rawson
Art Courtesy of Author
It was my pleasure to sit down and talk with the Founder of the Institute of Cannabis Science Jeff Rawson. I’m a bit of a science junky myself so I was thrilled to hear Jeff’s thoughts on where the industry is headed & what he’s doing to help it get there. Besides being so clearly passionate about cannabis he is such a bright and welcoming soul. I left our conversation so eager to see where the institute is in a couple of years. With someone like Jeff behind it the changes this industry needs are closer than we might think.
1. Growing up, what was your attitude toward cannabis?
I’m pretty far out on the neurodivergent scale and I was really sensitive to disapproval. The funny thing is the people I gravitated towards were the pot smokers. By the time I was in high school, I wore tie-dye all the time and looked like a typical stoner but never smoked it and never entertained it. The first time I tried cannabis was in college with a couple of friends and loved it from then on.
2. How did you go from never trying cannabis to working in cannabis?
My background is in chemistry, specifically organic chemistry. I got my Ph.D. at Duke and went to Germany for my post-doctorate at a physics institute there. I realized how narrow it was that I wasn't a match with the people around me, so I went to Harvard for a second postdoc. Eventually after a lot of things that didn't work, I found myself in electronic cigarettes for cannabis and that just stuck. I started working with testing labs to run experiments I couldn't do on my own. Eventually, cannabis pulled me in and I saw the huge gap in education testing and standards. I realized there was a need for a nonprofit that focused on that so I founded the Institute.
3. How does the Institute fit into society?
I aim to create something that runs like consumer reports but for cannabis. They publish reviews that are unbiased and products they purchased themselves and that's how I want this to run. So it accurately reflects the consumer experience. I realized the reason a lot of the weed doesn't live up to expectations is that no one is checking it. That's something we do in every other category of product but cannabis. In these state markets, it's all so new and it's descended from the illegal market where it's been grown and sold in secret which doesn't lend well to transparency. Now we want to bring it out of the shadows and if we want it normalized we have to make it more transparent. A lot more people would use cannabis if there was a solid way for them to know what they're getting is safe.
4. What is your goal?
To provide an unbiased review that is written by someone who isn’t trying to sell them anything. I’ll just smoke a bunch of weed and tell you how it went for me. Then I can give you a little bit of testing info while also explaining how potency numbers work. When people ask me about the best weed I ever smoked I can't remember the potency but I can tell them about how I felt, the smell, and the texture.
5. How do you plan to get info to the masses?
I want to convert the website into a resource, I’m finding that we need to just be able to get our stories out so they can be found. When the question is about cannabis testing and quality I don't know that there is a good reputable source for consumers. Most things are put out by a for-profit company. The research might be okay but it's too easy to hide behind the fluff.
6.What is it like being a non-profit less than 2 years old?
I've spent the past year just making connections and learning and getting established in the space. I’m just learning how to be a person on social media and having that presence was something I had to grow into. Now I'm in the process of growing this institute with members and a budget.
7. How can the community and industry support that growth?
Check out the website and our LinkedIn, you can also donate on the website which helps. Whenever you buy cannabis products at a dispensary always be polite but ask for the COA the more budtenders hear that the more likely they will start to provide it. One day I’d like to go into a dispensary and see the full profile of what I'm buying. Wouldn't that be amazing! Requesting COAs is a big thing to push that forward even if they can't provide it. I want to provide the resource, the more accessible that info is the more likely we are to see consumers make info and science-based decisions.
8. What do you hope to see over the next 10 years in the cannabis industry and what do you realistically think we’ll see?
I’m going to be extremely optimistic and say they are the same thing. We will see cannabis available and easily accessible at reasonable prices everywhere. I believe we will have reasonably and accurately labeled cannabis. The strains will be 100x as diverse as they are today.
