This episode Chelsea Sutula with Sespe Creek Collective brings us up-to-date on the recent developments with marijuana retailing in Ojai, the onerous new 3 percent tax,  pandemic adjustments, the existential dread and how cannabis might just be the medicine we need to get us through this dreadful year.

Chelsea grew up in Maryland and Athens, Georgia, daughter of researchers and academics, before going out on her own in Chicago and Pittsburgh, then finding her way to Ventura County, where she got involved in the medical marijuana side of things. It was a natural move to Ojai to open Sespe Creek, where she’s been for going on a decade, and three years with the legal shops.

We talk about the benefits of marijuana and the exciting new medical research into the canninaboid receptors, as well as overblown fears surrounding legalization. Chelsea also talks about the entrepreneurial flourishing unleashed by legalization, both in the retail and processing and growing side of things.

We also spend a good deal of time talking about what we’d like to see in Ojai’s future, a blank slate of possibilities and Ojai as a destination for wellness and local farmers as well as the kind of shops and light manufacturing, about which Chelsea is busy with her “unmet needs” survey. Chelsea's business savvy and compassion have combined to make her one of Ojai's leaders.

We did not talk about the Buffalo Bills-Pittsburgh Steelers game, tenkara fly rods, nor British motorcycles.