{"id":20993,"date":"2021-02-02T18:22:50","date_gmt":"2021-02-02T18:22:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/therealnews.com\/?p=267917"},"modified":"2021-02-02T18:22:50","modified_gmt":"2021-02-02T18:22:50","slug":"workers-not-venture-capitalists-should-run-the-marijuana-industry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/02\/02\/workers-not-venture-capitalists-should-run-the-marijuana-industry\/","title":{"rendered":"Workers, not venture capitalists, should run the marijuana industry"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-spotify wp-block-embed-spotify wp-embed-aspect-21-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe title=\"Spotify Embed: Justin Whittaker\" width=\"100%\" height=\"232\" allowtransparency=\"true\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"encrypted-media\" src=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/embed-podcast\/episode\/6GBEx3X6r2hbeAt7F9MKv1?si=Ig5H8iPkShCEXcEqjNkVyQ\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Working People<\/strong>&nbsp;is excited to announce that, along with our ongoing partnership with the amazing&nbsp;<strong>In These Times<\/strong>&nbsp;magazine, we are now partnered with&nbsp;<strong>The Real News Network<\/strong>&nbsp;in Baltimore!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In this episode, we sit down with Justin Whittaker for the first part of an ongoing series of interviews where we\u2019ll be talking to workers on all sides of the marijuana industry\u2014in states where that work is legal and in states where it\u2019s not. Justin is originally from the Midwest, but now he lives all the way up near Fairbanks, Alaska, where he works at an organic weed-growing operation. Alaska was the second state in the U.S. to decriminalize cannabis decades ago; in 2014, it became the third state to legalize recreational use. Justin has seen different sides of the industry, in different states, both before and after legalization. We talk about his life and work, and we talk about the ways legalization has changed things in the marijuana industry for buyers, business owners, and workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Additional links\/info below&#8230;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li><em>The Tight Rope<\/em>&nbsp;podcast, &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/therealnews.com\/max-alvarez-the-tight-rope-on-the-real-news\"  rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Max Alvarez &#8211; The Tight Rope on The Real News<\/a>&#8220;<\/li><li><em>In These Times<\/em>&nbsp;magazine&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/inthesetimes.com\/\"  rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">website<\/a>&nbsp;<\/li><li>Javier Hasse,&nbsp;<em>Forbes<\/em>, &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/javierhasse\/2020\/01\/28\/vc-in-cannabis\/?sh=174c4029a8c9\"  rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Even as Overall Deals Declined, VC Investments in Cannabis Nearly Doubled Over 2019<\/a>&#8220;<\/li><li>Aubrey Wieber,&nbsp;<em>Anchorage Daily News,<\/em>&nbsp;&#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.adn.com\/politics\/2020\/02\/23\/alaska-marijuana-industry-works-to-curry-favor-with-local-politicians\/\"  rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Alaska Marijuana Industry Works to Influence Local Politicians<\/a>&#8220;<\/li><li>Katie O&#8217;Reilly,&nbsp;<em>Sierra<\/em>, &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sierraclub.org\/sierra\/higher-cause-it-possible-consume-organic-cannabis\"  rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">A Higher Cause: Is It Possible to Consume Organic Cannabis?<\/a>&#8220;<\/li><li>Austa Somvichian-Clausen,&nbsp;<em>National Geographic<\/em>, &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalgeographic.com\/news\/2017\/06\/marijuana-organic-cannabis-industry-goes-green-energy-water-pesticides\/\"  rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Organic Weed? Marijuana Growers Go Green<\/a>&#8220;<\/li><li>Josh Marcus,&nbsp;<em>Rolling Stone<\/em>, &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/culture\/culture-features\/cannabis-weed-union-jobs-ufcw-846505\/\"  rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Meet America&#8217;s Most Powerful Cannabis Union<\/a>&#8220;<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Featured Music (all songs sourced from the Free Music Archive:<\/strong>&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/freemusicarchive.org\/\"  rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><u><strong>freemusicarchive.org<\/strong><\/u><\/a><strong>)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jules Taylor, &#8220;<em>Working People<\/em> theme song&#8221;<br>Robert Farmer, &#8220;This Is Our World, This Is Our Home&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The post <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/therealnews.com\/working-people-justin-whittaker\">Workers, not venture capitalists, should run the marijuana industry<\/a> appeared first on <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/therealnews.com\/\">The Real News Network<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"syndicated-attribution\">This post was originally published on <a href=\"https:\/\/therealnews.com\/working-people-justin-whittaker\">The Real News Network<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In this episode of Working People, we sit down with Justin Whittaker, an organic weed grower in Alaska, to talk about working in the marijuana industry before and after legalization.<\/p>\n<p>The post <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/therealnews.com\/working-people-justin-whittaker\">Workers, not venture capitalists, should run the marijuana industry<\/a> appeared first on <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/therealnews.com\/\">The Real News Network<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":247,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[453,5578],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20993"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/247"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20993"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20993\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20994,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20993\/revisions\/20994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}