Dope’s all wet
Pot CEO who went after 8-year-old water seller: I’m victim
The woman who said she would call the cops on an 8-year-old girl selling bottled water in the street admits it was a “stupid” decision, but says she feels “discriminated against” after receiving death threats.
Alison Ettel, the CEO of a California company that produces medical marijuana products for people and dogs, told HuffPost that Friday’s incident involving a nonwhite child did not have a “racial component.”
“I have no problem with enterprising young women,” Ettel, who is white, told HuffPost on Saturday after footage of her outburst went viral.
“I want to support that little girl. It was all the mother and just about being quiet.”
Ettel told the news website that she really only pretended to call the police after claiming that the girl and her mother had been making a commotion on a street in San Francisco.
The girl’s mother shot the video of Ettel appearing to make a cell phone call, then ducking behind a wall in embarrassment when she realizes she’s on camera.
The video of the confrontation has now been viewed more than 850,000 times on Instagram.
“I had been putting up with this for hours, and I just snapped,” Ettel told HuffPost.
“It was stupid. I completely regret that I handled that so poorly. It was completely stress-related, and I should have never confronted her. That was a mistake, a complete mistake.”
Ettel said that the mother and daughter “were screaming about what they were selling.”
“It was literally nonstop,” she told HuffPost.
“It was every two seconds, ‘Come and buy my water.’ It was continuous and it wasn’t a soft voice, it was screaming.”
Ettel is CEO of TreatWell Health, which says it provides “the highest-quality cannabis products for both people and animals.”
“We treat a lot of anxiety, a ton of arthritis ... but probably the number one thing we treat is cancer,” Ettel said in an interview with the BBC in December.