Lizzie Kirshenbaum is Harnessing Technology to Improve Industry and Community
Lizzie Kirshenbaum, Legislative Assoc. - East Coast, Weedmaps
I grew up in Long Island, New York and while my religious Jewish high school taught me to avoid marijuana and all drugs, I came home each night to have conversations with my mother, an elected judge who would tell me about her day and the criminal cases that came into her courtroom.
My mother made a point to teach me about how even in suburban Nassau County, drugs and crime were prevalent but without a merciful criminal justice system and opportunities for prisoner rehabilitation, her criminal calendar would only grow. My father suffered from Multiple Sclerosis and endured a great amount of physical pain that didn’t improve with any of the various medications and treatments he tried. Years later, I was intrigued to learn this very disease is one of the prominent qualifying conditions for medical marijuana and mused about how this potentially could have alleviated some of the pain he experienced for so many year.
“The opportunity to work in cannabis policy meant an opportunity to challenge myself on a broad spectrum of regulatory issues and also to advocate for social justice and medical reforms - two topics that are close to my heart.”
After college, I spent 5 years working on the Public Policy team at Airbnb, serving in a number of roles starting as a community organizer. When I decided I was ready to begin the next step in my career, I put a lot of thought into what issues matter most to me and what would get me excited to get out of bed everyday. Cannabis policy is intimidating; to say it’s complicated is an understatement as it touches on nearly every facet of policy one can think of. The opportunity to work in cannabis policy meant an opportunity to challenge myself on a broad spectrum of regulatory issues and also to advocate for social justice and medical reforms - two topics that are close to my heart.
When I joined Weedmaps from Airbnb I was expecting my whole professional world to flip upside down until I realized I was still working in the tech industry, and more specifically for a technology platform. Weedmaps is a technology company that services the cannabis industry, often referred to as a “non-plant touching” business or an ancillary business; one that doesn’t work directly with the plant but supports businesses that do. To that end, I have a great amount of pride in working for a company that harnesses technology to improve an industry that has been around since well before the internet.
“I strongly believe that just because you disagree doesn’t mean you need to be disagreeable and usually if you listen to the other side you can find some common ground.”
Advocates representing NORML chapters around the United States speak in the Weedmaps Education Pavilion at the 2019 NCF
My first month at Weedmaps we got a call from a concerned parents organization about the placement of one of our billboards near a school bus stop. When I was told it would be my responsibility to speak with a representative from this group, I was nervous. I hadn’t been there when this billboard was put in place, I’m not a parent, and more than that, I was still learning the ropes of my new job! But I met with this organization and listened intently to their concerns only to realize that we have the same concerns. Neither one of us think it's safe for children to consume cannabis (barring medical exemptions) and that was the point I made that day. By highlighting this commonality, I was able to relaunch the conversation from playing defense of our ads to discussing how to best achieve this goal of keeping cannabis out of childrens’ hands. I strongly believe that just because you disagree doesn’t mean you need to be disagreeable and usually if you listen to the other side you can find some common ground.
“While the legal market might be relatively new, marijuana is not new, and to legalize without any acknowledgement or meaningful policy to counter the former policies that devastated many minority communities would be wholly unjust.”
Attendees take a chance to win Weedmaps swag at the 2019 NCF
I think policies that support social equity and work to reverse the harmful effects of the War on Drugs are crucial to effective cannabis policy. Cannabis prohibition is one of many tools that was implemented in large part to criminalize members of Black and Brown communities. While the legal market might be relatively new, marijuana is not new, and to legalize without any acknowledgement or meaningful policy to counter the former policies that devastated many minority communities would be wholly unjust.
There are no cannabis policy experts. There are science and agricultural experts, business experts, and certainly cannabis connoisseurs but legalization itself is new so there’s still no perfect framework for how this all works best. We have the advantage of some states already legalizing and learning from their best practices as well as their mistakes but ultimately, this area of policy is new and as such necessitates creativity and patience.