Featuring:
Shanel Lindsay, Esq.
HOST
Shanel Lindsay is an attorney, advocate, and serial entrepreneur. She serves as Parabola Center’s co-founder and entrepreneurship director. She is also the founder and CEO of Ardent Life, a global cannabis hardware and consumer packaged goods company, and Billow, a sesh-friendly filtration system. Shanel was an author of Question 4, the ballot initiative to legalize adult-use cannabis in Massachusetts, and was subsequently appointed to the Massachusetts Cannabis Advisory Board, serving from 2017 to 2021. Shanel also co-founded the grassroots advocacy group Equitable Opportunities Now. Shanel is involved in the development of marijuana laws and new businesses across the United States and globally as a frequent speaker and expert consultant for other emerging businesses in the cannabis and biotech space.
Laury Lucien, Esq.
HOST
Laury Lucien, Parabola’s education director, is an attorney, professor, serial entrepreneur, and transformational speaker. She currently teaches cannabis law at Suffolk University and Clark University, and she’s the founder of a Massachusetts cannabis retailer, manufacturer, and courier. Laury also founded the Legally Great Academy, a consulting and education company that supports emerging entrepreneurs. Through the Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission’s social equity program, she provided training and technical assistance to program participants, and she also served on the state Cannabis Advisory Board.
Damian Fagon
HOST
Damian Fagon is a former cannabis regulator for the state of New York, where he served as the inaugural Chief Equity Officer for the Office of Cannabis Management. A third-generation farmer and development economist, Damian blends grassroots agricultural experience with equitable economic policy, advising on cannabis market development and agricultural initiatives internationally. He currently serves as Director of the Bronx Cannabis Hub, building new models and programming for restorative economic justice and community-centered cannabis markets from the ground up. Damian holds a BA from the University of Virginia and an MPA in Economic Development from Columbia University.
Margeaux Lavoie
HOST
Margeaux (Maggie) Lavoie is a Social Equity Fellow for Parabola Center and a student at the University of Maine School of Law, where she has served as Executive Editor of the Maine Law Review and president of the Maine Association of Public Interest Lawyers. She was a Rural Law Fellow of the Fort Kent Rural Practice Clinic for Spring 2024 and a student research assistant in cannabis law for Professor Scott Bloomberg. Prior to attending law school, Maggie was the Director of Operations of the Church of Safe Injection, a daytime drop-in harm reduction center and CDC-certified syringe service program located in Lewiston, Maine.
Shaleen Title, Esq.
HOST
Shaleen Title is co-founder and director of Parabola Center. She was an inaugural cannabis regulator in Massachusetts. After completing her term as a commissioner, she authored two top-ranking publications on cannabis social equity policies and preventing cannabis monopolies as a fellow at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law Drug Enforcement and Policy Center. Shaleen has spent over 20 years writing, passing, and implementing equitable cannabis laws and has testified before governmental bodies around the world about reparative marijuana laws. She is a founding member of the Cannabis Regulators of Color Coalition. Dubbed "the people's weed watchdog" by Boston Magazine, she is the recipient of multiple lifetime achievement awards for her work as an activist, regulator, and author.
Dr. Faith English
HOST
Faith English is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Drug Dependence and Epidemiology Training Program. She received her PhD and MPH from the University of Massachusetts Amherst School of Public Health and Health Sciences. Using both qualitative and quantitative methods, her research focuses on the intersection of cannabis legalization, health equity, and criminal justice reform. Dr. English is passionate about exploring the multiple ways in which cannabis and other drug legalization can address the public health crisis of mass incarceration and the war on drugs.
Mark Barnett
SPEAKER
Mark is the founder and Policy Director of the Maine Craft Cannabis Association which advocates for cannabis policy reform and consumer- and small business-friendly policies in Maine, and is a founding member of the National Craft Cannabis Coalition, a coalition of state-level advocacy organizations promoting state and federal policies that support small cannabis producers. Mark is also the founder and CEO of Higher Grounds of Maine, a licensed adult-use dispensary and specialty coffee shop in Portland, Maine.
Kaelan Castetter
SPEAKER
Kaelan is a leading policy and regulatory compliance expert and advocate within New York’s cannabis industry. He has been intimately involved in the market’s formation for over a decade, and began his entrepreneurial journey by restarting his father’s hemp-infused wine business before leading large-scale hemp cultivation and processing operations across the state. He’s utilized this on-the-ground perspective to serve as an effective advisor to over one hundred small businesses as they navigate the evolving and complex regulatory landscape. Additionally, Kaelan serves as a policy advisor to the trade group representing licensed cannabis manufacturers and wholesalers, helping to amplify their voice in furtherance of a fair and competitive marketplace.
Tauhid Chappell
SPECIAL GUEST
Tauhid Chappell is the first Executive Director to lead New Jersey’s Cannabis Academy, the country’s first government-run program aimed at diversifying the cannabis industry. Tauhid brings 10 years of experience in the cannabis space as a medical marijuana patient, a journalist who’s covered legalization efforts across the country, a former budtender for Philadelphia’s second medical marijuana dispensary, a current Adjunct Professor at Thomas Jefferson University, and an organizer of the Philadelphia CannaBusiness Association, Pennsylvania's first Black-owned, Black-led cannabis nonprofit aimed at healing the damage done by cannabis prohibition and mass incarceration.
Dasheeda Dawson
SPEAKER
Dasheeda Dawson is The WeedHead™, a global cannabis advocate, award-winning strategist and bestselling author of How to Succeed in the Cannabis Industry. She has 20 years of business development and strategic management excellence while leading teams for United Way, Target and Victoria’s Secret. Currently, Dasheeda is Founding Director of Cannabis NYC overseeing the development of the city’s legal industry. She is also the Founding Chair of the Cannabis Regulators of Color Coalition (CRCC). Dasheeda received her MBA from Rutgers University and an undergraduate degree in molecular biology from Princeton University.
Kassandra Frederique
SPEAKER
Kassandra Frederique is the executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, a national nonprofit that works to end the war on drugs and build alternatives grounded in science, compassion, health, and human rights. At DPA, Frederique has built and led innovative campaigns around policing, the overdose crisis, and marijuana legalization—each with a consistent racial justice focus. Her advocacy, and all of the Drug Policy Alliance’s work, lies at the intersection of health, equity, autonomy, and justice.
Pat Garofalo
SPEAKER
Pat Garofalo is the Director of State and Local Policy at the American Economic Liberties Project and Fight Corporate Monopolies. Pat is the author of The Billionaire Boondoggle: How Our Politicians Let Corporations and Bigwigs Steal Our Money and Jobs. Previously, Pat was assistant managing editor for opinion at U.S. News & World Report and economic policy editor at ThinkProgress. He has written for publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Nation, The Guardian, The Atlantic, and The Week, and currently writes the Boondoggle newsletter on Substack.
Kevin Gilnack
SPEAKER
Kevin B. Gilnack is a seasoned cannabis policy advocate and public affairs strategist with more than 20 years of nonprofit leadership advancing civil rights, human services, and economic equity. Personally impacted by cannabis prohibition and later included in President Biden’s blanket pardon, he now serves as Deputy Director of Equitable Opportunities Now, where he helped pass the landmark 2022 cannabis equity omnibus law and leads campaigns to preserve ownership caps and support social equity businesses. He previously served as the inaugural executive director of the Commonwealth Dispensary Association, helping to open Massachusetts’ first medical dispensaries and coauthor Question 4.
Matthew Greenberg
SPEAKER
Matthew Greenberg, CFA, is co-founder, President, and CFO of Platform Cannabis Advisors, a specialty finance firm pioneering an innovative solution for New York retail cannabis licensees. Matthew most recently spearheaded economic policy at OCM, building on six years of cannabis investment experience, including as co-CIO of East Hill Capital, a cannabis investment firm specializing in public equities. He was also the Head of Finance for a large real estate services start-up, where he advised the company through a $35M financing.
Chelsea Higgs Wise
SPEAKER
Chelsea Higgs Wise was a clinical social worker for ten years before transitioning to help organizations create equitable policies for community safety. Chelsea’s expertise continues to influence criminal justice, mental health and anti-drug war priorities in Virginia. In 2019, Chelsea co-founded Marijuana Justice for equitable legalization as a gateway to dismantle the Virginia War on Drugs and in 2021 Virginia became the first state in the South to legalize simple possession of marijuana, home cultivation as well as create a fund to reinvest for community repair. Through her leadership, the organization also convenes southern organizers around Drug War Reparations as well as pushing anti-monopoly regulation in order to build community-led economies. Federally, Chelsea is an active voice within the United for Marijuana Decriminalization (UMD) coalition focused on organizing public comment for the recent marijuana scheduling proposal.
Maritza Perez Medina, Esq.
SPEAKER
Maritza Perez Medina is the director of federal affairs at the Drug Policy Alliance, where she leads the organization’s federal legislative agenda and strategy to end the drug war. In that role, she lobbies Congress and the president’s administration on issues pertaining to drug policy and criminal legal reform. Maritza convenes the Marijuana Justice Coalition, which helped organize the successful passage of the MORE Act through the U.S. House in 2020 and 2022—the first and only times a Congressional chamber has voted to deschedule marijuana.
Jason Ortiz
SPEAKER
Jason Ortiz is the Director of Strategic Initiatives for the Last Prisoner Project Jason was arrested for simple cannabis possession at the age of 16 in Norwich CT, and that experience inspired him to become a cannabis justice advocate. He was one of the founding board Members of the Minority Cannabis Business Association and is the immediate past Executive Director of Students for Sensible Drug Policy. In addition to his drug policy activism, Jason sits on the board of the CT Working Families Party and has served as President of the Connecticut Puerto Rican Agenda where he organized for economic justice for his home island of Puerto Rico.
Cat Packer, Esq.
SPEAKER
Cat Packer is the director of drug markets and legal regulation at the Drug Policy Alliance, the vice chair of the Cannabis Regulators of Color Coalition, and a distinguished cannabis policy practitioner in residence at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law’s Drug Enforcement and Policy Center. From 2017 to 2022, Cat served as the first executive director of the City of Los Angeles Department of Cannabis Regulation. Cat is a proud alumna of The Ohio State University, where she received a bachelor’s degree in political science, a master’s degree in public policy and management, and a law degree.
Tabatha Robinson
SPEAKER
Tabatha Robinson, JD, MBA was sworn in as Director of the Maryland Cannabis Administration (MCA) in April 2025. Prior to joining the MCA, Ms. Robinson served as Executive Deputy Director of Economic Development and Acting Chief Equity Officer for the New York State Office of Cannabis Management, where she drove economic programs and social equity licensing policies for New York’s adult use and medical cannabis markets. During her tenure, the office awarded more than 50 percent of new cannabis licenses to social equity business owners; more than 90 percent of operational retailers have prior marijuana convictions.
Shekia Scott
SPEAKER
Shekia Scott is the Senior Cannabis Industry Manager for the City of Boston, in the Mayor's Office of Economic Opportunity and Inclusion. She oversees the economic development and equitable growth initiatives for Boston's cannabis industry as well as the Boston Cannabis Equity Program. Previously, she was the Director of Equity and Community Outreach for the Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission, pioneering the nation's first, statewide cannabis social equity program. She also serves on the Board of Directors for the Cannabis Regulators of Color Coalition.
Adam Smith
SPEAKER
Adam Smith's extensive career in drug policy reform includes significant contributions to the movement. In 1996, as Associate Director of StopTheDrugWar.org, Adam launched The Week Online, the nation’s first publication providing original coverage of domestic and international drug policy from a reform perspective. Two years later, Smith launched the Higher Education Act Reform Campaign, the first successful effort to roll back federal drug war era legislation. He also laid the groundwork for the founding of Students for Sensible Drug Policy, incubating the group under his direction for nearly two years until SSDP’s launch as a stand-alone organization. As the founder of the Craft Cannabis Alliance and the Alliance for Sensible Markets, Smith wrote legislation and spearheaded successful efforts to pass the nation’s first three cannabis interstate commerce bills in Oregon, California, and Washington.
