POT IS HOT

JACKSON D. TILLEY’S NEW BOOK EXPLORES THE BOOMING CANNABIS BUSINESS.

When Jackson D. Tilley started working in the cannabis industry after graduating college, the books he read on the subject didn’t really speak to him. He was looking to read something more relatable, something written by younger, more diverse authors. “If it didn’t exist, I might as well write it,” he thought. So he did.

Billion Dollar Dimebag gives readers a look at the inner workings of the cannabis industry—from the unique perspective of someone who’s worked in that realm since its infancy. It’s informative and engaging, intertwining history and Tilley’s professional experience with his own personal life and unique perspective. It’s funny and endearing, honest and open; it reads like it was written by your best friend.

Why a cannabis book?

I’ve been working in the industry for five and a half years and in any other line of work, I would still be considered pretty new. However, in this one, I’m something of a dinosaur. The industry is not that old and five and a half years is the vast majority of the period of time where cannabis as a legal, regulated industry existed. When I was first getting into the space, I had read a lot of books on the subject as I think a lot of people do when they’re entering a new line of work and I didn’t feel like there were necessarily titles that spoke to me and spoke to people like me and I guess what I mean by that is sort of younger, more diverse voices in the space. That was really the driver for me; if it didn’t exist, I might as well write it.

I know you’re sober, but can you talk a little bit about your relationship with the substance?

Aside from being gainfully employed by it, I don’t really have one. Before I got sober, I had a casual relationship with cannabis, as I think most people do. It was certainly not my primary recreational activity, but since I’m sober, I obviously don’t do anything on the mind-altering front anymore.

The cannabis industry has sort of exploded in California and elsewhere. Where do you see cannabis in 10 years?

10 years from now we will definitely be well into it being federally legalized. In what form and what shape that takes, it’s anybody’s guess, but I think we can at least count on that much. I think 10 years from now, we’re going to see really large scale partnerships within the cannabis industry, similar to what we see with the alcohol industry, where brands are partnering with known outside brands to further the culture and further the product and get people to have emotional connections to these cannabis brands.

THC and it’s sister CBD are so red-hot right now. Is it a fad like avocado toast or is it a miracle substance that will change the game in beauty, health and more?

I think CBD will for sure stick around. There’s a lot of anecdotal evidence to support that it has positive impacts on people. Some say it’s psychosomatic, but the end result is the same. I don’t really know that it matters. If you feel happier after drinking a CBD seltzer, then does it matter if you’re actually happier as a result of that? For a huge portion of modern time, people have been consuming cannabis and we’re just now getting to a point where there’s not such a taboo around it. I think the result is that you’re saying, in one sort of traunch, people who have always used cannabis secretly are feeling more comfortable to be out in the open about it. You’re seeing people who have a really casual or no prior relationship with cannabis start to dabble in it a little bit because there’s safe and reliable access to it. In the days where the black market or the illicit market was thriving, your suburban soccer mom was not going to go buy a dime bag from a drug dealer, whereas now they can walk into a beautifully designed dispensary, probably in their own neighborhood and charge their purchase to their American Express.

What was the biggest challenge in writing this book?

Actually doing it. It’s hard sitting down. I was working full time while I was doing it, so this was pretty much every weekend, every night, all night. It went through a lot of different versions before it kind of came together in its final form. Obviously there’s a lot of myself in the book and a lot of my own story with addiction and other historically private pieces of my life, and that can be painful to talk about to a certain extent, but I think seeing it out on the bookshelves is also liberating.

What surprised you most when speaking to people and researching the book?

I spoke to a lot of people who are all vehemently pro-cannabis. So I think, and this is a broader theme, but for me it’s always interesting to see just how much the larger conversation has shifted. If I were writing this book a decade ago, it would’ve been much more challenging to get some of the people that I spoke to go on the record saying, ‘Yeah, this is a great thing. It should be legal.’

You’ve talked about queer culture and cannabis culture being inextricably linked because they share an origin story.

The reason that we have what has evolved into legalized cannabis is because of an activist in San Francisco during the HIV AIDS crisis, Dennis Peron. He fought to have legal access to cannabis for his partner, who was dying from HIV and AIDS. Those origin stories are really tied together. He ended up helping write some of the legislation in California that went on to become what would turn into legalized cannabis in California. These two cultural movements started in the same place at the same time, and really to a certain extent started with the same person.

How do you feel your book has been received now that it’s out into the world?

At the end of the day, I frankly haven’t gotten any—i’m going to jinx myself and get a bunch of hate mail or something—but I haven’t gotten any negative feedback. I mean there’s been some like mild criticism of some of the arguments, but at the end of the day, the people who I love and respect all really like the book. So for me, that’s really all I wanted. I wanted to write this book and I didn’t do it for everyone to love me, but the people who already do, they like it. I think that’s what counts.

What’s next?

I think I’ll be involved in this industry probably for my professional career. I don’t know in what form necessarily, but it leaves a mark on you to a certain extent. There are not many people who get the opportunity to work in an industry that’s been built from its infancy, so I have a very special relationship with what goes on just because I’ve gotten to be a part of it being built. Who knows, it’s tough to say what will be next, but I think it’ll involve some of the things that I talk about in the book in some way or another.