1. I
T’S 4:20 ON A THURSDAY afternoon,
and Jodie Emery is teaching me how to
roll one of her signature joints. “I rolled
my first when I was 16, on top of a copy
of Cannabis Culture magazine,” she
says, grinding up a hybrid strain called
Green Crack, popular for its higher
concentration of sativa, a type of mari-
juana that gives you an energetic high.
It smells mostly skunky, like all weed smells, but with
a whiff of lemon. “I remember telling my friends,
‘weed smells horrible,’” Jodie says with a laugh.
“They said, ‘you’ll get used to it, it’s like coffee.’”
We’re sitting in her office on the top floor of the
Cannabis Culture HQ in Vancouver. The room is
sparsely decorated, save for two large, uncluttered
desks from which Emery, 31, and her husband, Marc,
oversee their mini empire of head shops, a weed-ori-
ented media company and an e-commerce site that
sells all manner of 420 paraphernalia, from Justin
Trudeau–printed rolling papers to hand-blown-glass
bongs. Most recently, the Emerys have added a mar-
ijuana dispensary franchise to their business model.
Jodie gingerly sprinkles the ground-up weed into a
long rolling paper, her neat, unmanicured fingers
delicately massaging the herb into a tight cylinder. She
shows me, Martha Stewart style, how to properly fold
the filter and pack the weed in with the capped end of
aBicpen.“That’showIrollmyjoint,”shesays,gleefully
sparkingthefinishedproduct.Sheinhalesdeeply,“And
then I get lipstick on it.”
EMERY IS ONE OF THE MOST notorious names in
weed. Marc is a long-time marijuana activist who, in
1994,fundedacourtchallengetooverturnalawthat
prohibited people from selling weed-related items and
literature. His outspoken demeanour and in-your-
face activism, paired with his diehard devotion to
bud, earned him the nickname Canada’s Prince of
Pot. In the ’90s, Marc started a mail-order cannabis
seed business that would get him repeatedly arrested
and eventually extradited to the U.S., where he would
spend nearly five years in jail. (He was released in
2014.) He’s a 58-year-old live-free-or-die type of pot-
head, credited with bringing marijuana activism and
legalization to national attention. But ever since his
incarceration, Jodie has taken his place as the face of
Cannabis Culture. And with her eloquence, media
savvy, polished look and professional approach, she
represents a new kind of cannabis advocate, with a
mandate that’s equal parts politics and commerce.
As the Liberals stumble toward legalizing and reg-
ulatingconsumptionof non-medicalmarijuana—they
promise to introduce legislation by next spring—the
business of buying and selling weed has become
increasinglyconfusing.Inanattempt tojumponwhat
could be an emerging industry, people have started
opening storefront dispensaries across Canada. The
vast majority claim to require customers to show a
prescription or doctor’s note before they can buy weed. But here’s the thing:
all pot dispensaries are still operating illegally. While it’s legal for patients with
prescriptions to purchase medical marijuana from licensed growers, it is not
legal to buy weed from a dispensary. Meanwhile, possessing it for recreational
use (that is, without a prescription), no matter how small the amount, also
remains illegal. According to the letter of the law, simple possession of up to
30 grams is a misdemeanour punishable by a fine of up to $1,000 and a
maximum of six months in jail (though the less you have, the less serious the
punishment tends to be).
In the midst of this Wild West marketplace is Cannabis Culture, a heritage
brand in an upstart industry. Marc and Jodie have been on the front lines of
the battle for legalization for years. Now that change is on the horizon, Jodie’s
task is to redefine what makes her relevant as a cannabis activist—and to
turnherhusband’slegacyintoalegitbusiness.“WhenMarcgotoutof prison,
we had nothing; we were struggling to get by with a head shop and lounge,”
she says. “Meanwhile, we’re watching the industry we helped create become
enormously profitable. So we decided we needed to start selling marijuana
like all of these dispensaries are doing.”
In April, Cannabis Culture began offering weed at their Gastown head-
quartersandasatellitelocationonDavieStreet.Sincethen,Jodiehasfranchised
fiveCannabisCulture–brandedlocationsinToronto;athirdstoreinVancouver;
one in Port Coquitlam, B.C.; and one in Peterborough, Ont., which has since
shut down after two police raids. A Hamilton, Ont., location will open in late
November. To set her stores apart from the competition, she did something
different: Cannabis Culture dispensaries sell weed to anyone over the age of
19, regardless of whether they have a prescription.
Running recreational pot shops is most certainly against the law. Marc and
Jodie have long been morally and politically opposed to marijuana prohibition
inCanada,sothey’redoingitanyway—andithasdonewondersforrefreshing
the Cannabis Culture brand. When police recently raided Cannabis Culture
stores in Toronto and Peterborough, the Emerys flew in to give press confer-
ences about the injustice of marijuana prohibition and criminalization. Each
time the cops try to shut her down, Jodie steps even further into the spotlight,
making her the go-to source for pro-weed commentary. “The only way to
change the law,” she maintains, “is to break the law.”
T
O FIND OUT WHAT A potrepreneur’s daily grind is really like, I
spent a day following Jodie around. We meet at 10 a.m. in the
Emerys’ rental condo in Vancouver’s Chinatown. She greets me
wearing the West Coast–girl’s uniform: an Aritzia swing dress,
black pointed flats and a pendant necklace. The air is thick with the scent
of weed freshly smoked (she had a few puffs before her shower to help her
relax). But aside from some ornate hand-blown-glass bongs and carefully
arranged crystals, this doesn’t look like a pothead’s lair. The tiny one-bed-
room is minimally decorated and clean to the point of seeming sterile. “I’m
a neat freak, so I’m always tidying,” Jodie says. “It really does look like this
all the time.”
As proof, she offers to show me her bedroom closet. “Marc’s still sleeping,
but he won’t mind,” she says. She flips on the light and there he is: the Prince
of Pot, topless, mouth agape and dead asleep. Though the room is now fully
illuminated and there’s a stranger poking through his wife’s collection of
shifts, he doesn’t stir. The closet is, as advertised, a Marie Kondo dream.
We thenstartmakingourwaytoCatch122,acaféinGastownwhereJodie
occasionally spends the morning sipping a latte and responding to the myriad
media requests she gets on the daily. Today she’s texting with Toronto Sun
reportersandTheNewYorkTimesaboutquotesforupcomingarticles.Enroute,
Jodiegivesmeherstumpspeechaboutthepovertyanddrugissuesthatplague
the Downtown Eastside. “I care about more than marijuana legalization,”
she says. “When I consider how many people are suffering and struggling,
Activist.
Entrepreneur.
Pothead.
Meet Jodie
Emery, Canada’s
Stoner Queen
BY JENNIFER GOLDBERG
PHOTOGRAPHY BY IAN LANTERMAN
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2. I know what you’re thinking: girl has serious daddy
issues. I thought so, too, at first. I ask if she has ever
consideredaconnectionbetweenherdad’searlydeath
and her marriage to a man who is both her personal
guruandoldenoughtobeherfather.“Peoplearelooking
forrelationshipswithpeoplewhoareliketheirparents,”
Jodiesays.“Ilovedmydadsomuch,andhelovedmeso
much, so maybe I’m looking for that father who disap-
peared.ButMarcisnotareplacementformyfather.He
isnotlikemydadatall.That’sjustwhatpeoplesayabout
women who marry older guys.”
Others have called her a trophy wife. And at surface
level, there may seem to be a Svengali vibe to their
relationship, but Jodie has turned the whole men-
tor-muse trope on its head. “The student has now
become the master,” she laughs. It’s a stoner laugh­,
withhintsof Spicoli,SeanPenn’ssurfercharacterfrom
Fast Times at Ridgemont High. But it’s charming.
Contagious.“Iprefertokeep[Marc]outof thebusiness.
Hestruggledwiththat,butIbuiltwhatwe’vegotnow.”
For his part, while Marc was confident Jodie could
handle Cannabis Culture when he was in prison, her
ultimate takeover has been challenging for their rela-
tionship. After he was released, he says, “I wanted my
business back. We argued about this for six months,
but she won me over.”
A
FTER JODIE AND I finish our coffee, I
tag along to what is arguably the most
important part of her workday: a media
interview.ThisoneiswithDrex,abearded
andboisteroustalk-radiohostonVancouver’sCKNW.
“We need places for people to consume cannabis,”
Jodie says during a discussion about a recent state-
ment by police that they will turn people away from
a local concert if they’re caught carrying drugs,
including weed. “We’ve got our vapour lounges, so
you can come to our place and smoke,” she adds.
I’m impressed by the way she slides in a promo for
her business while managing to portray just the
right amount of outrage about the issue at hand.
Jodie’s ability to give good sound bites is just one
reason the media chase her. She’s also strikingly beau-
tiful and not afraid to use her looks to her advantage.
Her creed: “If a pretty face can sell makeup, it can sell
a message.” In the past, she’s appeared as a topless
centrefoldforCannabisCulturemagazine.Shealsoposed
in a white string bikini in a promotional poster for Ron
Paul, a U.S. Libertarian candidate in the 2008
Republican presidential primaries (the poster’s slogan:
“Liberty turns me on!”). “If somebody thinks you’re
attractive,thenmaybetheywilllistentowhatyouhave
to say,” she says. “I’ve had people say they find my
activism sexy.”
Thepressisn’talwaysfavourable,however.Amonth
after our interview, The Globe and Mail ran an investi-
gation into contaminants in weed reporters bought at
dispensaries acrossToronto. One-third of the samples
would not have passed Health Canada’s medical mar-
self. “Losing someone who loved you
leaves a void,” she says. “I don’t have
many people close to me because
someone close to me left me.”
Jodie stayed pretty straight-edge
for the early part of high school. Her
mom wasn’t strict, but when her
teachers told her drugs and drinking
were bad, she listened. That is, until
she took her first hit of weed from a
gravity bong her friends had set up
in her parents’ bathroom. Jodie
enjoyed getting high. She liked the
people who had offered her weed.
Maybeherteachershadbeenwrong.
“Then I started questioning every-
thing I’d been told,” she says.
Jodie swiftly fell in love with weed
culture and the anti-establishment
ethos that went along with it. She
spent the next year partying, doing
coke and rebelling against every-
thing. When she realized she had a
drug problem, she asked her mom to
send her to boarding school in
Victoria. There she came to rely on
weed as a way to avoid cocaine and
copewithdepression.Shealsobegan
talking to Marc Emery on the
Cannabis Culture chat forums,
along with other activists like Dana
Larsen and the late Michelle Rainey.
“Itwascoolthatthisfamousguywho
was in the media would actually talk
topeople,”shesays.“Heinspiredme.”
She maintains their relationship remained platonic
until she was 19.
After high school, Jodie enrolled in the University
of Victoria to study liberal arts. But one month into
her first year, she was sexually assaulted. She chose
not to report it. “I didn’t want to have to deal with the
ordeal of it,” she says. Though she tried to go back to
school, she was traumatized and couldn’t focus. She
moved back to Kamloops and took a job cleaning hotel
rooms. She also got more involved with Marc.
“Jodiewasprecociouslyintelligent,andthatattracted
me,” Marc says. “When she was 19, I got her parents’
permission and asked if she wanted to come to
Vancouver.” He made the case for why they should be
together, “in a personal way and in a business way.”
Two months later, she moved to the city. Marc then
appointed her co-editor of Cannabis Culture magazine.
Hetaughtherthebusiness,introducedhertohigh-pro-
file activists and educated her about the politics sur-
rounding marijuana prohibition. He was her mentor,
boss and role model. He was also her first boyfriend.
In 2005, after Marc’s businesses were raided, he pro-
posed to Jodie from his jail cell. They were married a
year later. Pot leaves decorated their wedding cake.
From top: Marc lights up a joint for Jodie on their
wedding day in 2006; Jodie at an anti-raid protest
outside Toronto Police HQ last May; police carry
out a raid on Cannabis Culture’s Queen Street West
location in Toronto last June
and yet how much money is going to
supposedlyhelping[addicts],it’sobvi-
ously not working. We need a new
approach.I’dliketoworkonharm-re-
duction and even cannabis sub­sti­
tution therapy.” (Some research
suggests marijuana may help treat
drug and alcohol addiction.)
For someone who says one of her
proudestachievementswashercameo
appea­r­ance in the Trailer Park Boys
movie, Jodie has been particularly
politically ambitious. She’s run for
office five times, including two MLA
bids for the B.C. Marijuana Party
and two for the B.C. Green Party.
Though she was defeated in her
2013 run for the Greens, she got
respectable numbers at the polls,
says Matt Toner, deputy leader of
the party. She has testified in support
of legalization in the Washington
state legislature and spoken in a
press conference alongside the B.C.
attorney general. In 2014, she
sought the nomination to run for
the federal Liberals in Vancouver.
The National Post’s Kelly McParland
wrote that Jodie “might make a
dynamite candidate,” but she lost
out, some speculate, because of her
ties to weed. She also applied (unsuc-
cessfully) to be part of the federal
marijuana task force, a group that
will advise the government on reg-
ulation. Jodie says she thinks she was rejected for vocally opposing the way
the government is going about legalization and its decision not to decrimi-
nalize weed while the country waits for regulations. “Because the Liberals
had me on their side for so long, they weren’t happy when I criticized them,”
she says. “Maybe they didn’t see me as a team player.”
Toner says that chutzpah is precisely what would make her a good poli-
tician. “She has a lot of the tools of a great candidate: she’s passionate; she
works hard; she understands the issues,” he says.Toner recently encouraged
Jodie to run again in the upcoming 2017 provincial election. “Her challenge
is: can she change perception and her way of doing things from that of an
outspoken advocate into someone who’s ready to be part of governance? I
honestly think she’s capable of doing it.”
But perhaps her biggest coup to date is emerging from Marc’s shadow. For
all his notoriety, it’s difficult to imagine her husband’s f-ck-the-man style of
activismmakingthesamepoliticalinroads.“She’smet[formerprimeminister]
Paul Martin and [parliamentary secretary to the minister of justice] Bill Blair,
and they like dealing with her,” says Marc. “Very few politicians will say no
to Jodie, whereas they’ll all say no to me.”
WHEN SHE WAS GROWING UP in Kamloops, B.C., friends and family
always thought Jodie would be prime minister one day. “I was a teacher’s pet
and believed everything I was told,” she says. She had a happy childhood,
but when she was eight, her dad committed suicide. Jodie knew he suffered
from anxiety but says she still doesn’t fully understand why he killed him-
ijuana safety standards. Weed purchased at Cannabis Culture tested positive
for “bacteria exceeding Health Canada’s allowable limit” and was the only
sample “to exceed Health Canada’s limit for total yeasts and moulds.” The
inspections were run at a third-party lab that was kept anonymous because
it is illegal for everyone but licensed growers to test marijuana, which means
dispensaries don’t have any way to assess their supply.
“It’s a lot of fear-mongering,” Jodie says when I call to follow up about the
Globe article. “They’re trying to blame dispensaries for any problems with
quality when that blame falls on the government and prohibition.” The
reported lack of quality control doesn’t seem to be stopping customers.
According to Jodie’s estimations, the franchises are pulling in $5,000 to
$10,000 every day. While that may seem like a lot of cash, running an illegal
weed dispensary is actually quite expensive. As a condition of the franchise
agreement, store owners are required to cover legal costs and bail for any
arrested employees. As well, sometimes landlords extort higher rents because
of the increased risk they’re running to house an unlawful business. On the
Emerys’end,theybuytheweedfromgrowers(somelicensed,somenot),cover
sales and payroll tax, distribute the weed to their franchisees and then receive
a percentage of the profits.That amount is steadily increasing as the business
grows. “I think it’s a great sign that people love our brand,” Jodie says. “We’ve
just given all of our employees a dollar-per-hour raise.”
After the CKNW interview, we head over to the Davie Street franchise.This
locationencapsulateseverythingJodiewantsotherCannabisCulturefranchises
to be: a modern one-stop shop for buying and consuming weed. There’s a
head shop on the ground floor; upstairs is the smoking lounge, which looks
like an undergrad common room. By contrast, the adjacent dispensary is all
white walls and clean lines. Apothecary jars full of weed sit behind glass
counters. Each strain is labelled with notes about its balance of sativa (the
energizer) and indica (which gives you that mellow, stoner feeling), and
percentage of THC (the chemical that makes you high) and CBD (a substance
purported to have medical benefits). Customers order from the “budtender,”
pay in cash and either smoke in the lounge or take it to go. Prices range from
$5 to $12 per gram. Vancouver rates tend to be lower than those inToronto,
but they’re overall still slightly higher than what you’d pay your dealer.
Jodie greets the hipsters and punks who work the retail counters; they all
seem to adore her.Then again, who wouldn’t love a gig that lets you blaze at
the office? It should be noted that Jodie also conducts business while baked.
“I almost always carry a joint around with me,” she says, pulling a blunt out
of her black Marc by Marc Jacobs hobo as proof. “I can get stressed and
depressed, but cannabis helps me [cope].”
Do you even get high anymore? I ask.
She does. “Yesterday we smoked after a meeting, and we were all just
laughing hysterically,” she says. “It’s like having a glass of wine.” And while
she says she would never sip a pre-shower glass of Chardonnay, she insists
that for her, being a little bit high isn’t the same as being drunk. “When I say
weed is like wine, I mean it’s a substance people use to relax,” she says. “But
weed is less intoxicating. When I drink wine, I notice a negative impact.” Not
so after a few tokes.
I get it. We’re all adults here. Everyone deserves a little something to power
down after a stressful day. But one question keeps niggling at me: why would
someone devote her life so thoroughly to weed? “For me, it’s a civil liberties
issue,” she explains. “It’s not about the right to smoke pot; it’s about the right
not to get arrested for making that choice.” She also openly relishes the fact
that as a cannabis activist, she can be a big fish in the small pond of people
willing to champion this controversial cause.Then there’s the fact that there’s
a lot of money to be made.The Canadian market could, reportedly, be worth
an estimated $5 billion to $7 billion annually. Jodie is excited to take her cut,
citing Apple, Starbucks and Beats by Dre as brands she’d like to model her
business on. “I want to be Dr. Dre,” she says. “The Dr. Dre of Weed.”
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