Joining the Pipe Dreams podcast this week: Lex Corwin, CEO and founder of the queer-led, family-run cannabis company, Stone Road. As a legacy grower turned founder of one of the country’s fastest growing national cannabis brands, Corwin has never known a life outside the industry. Retailing at over 400 outlets throughout California, Oklahoma, Massachusetts, and Michigan, plus New York, New Mexico, and Connecticut expansion in the works, Stone Road is a multi-state brand that maintains indie values despite its growing footprint.

Perched on top of a hill, Stone Road’s greenhouses in Nevada City, California take up a mere half-acre of their 57-acre wild property and operate using biodynamic farming strategies (minus the whole burying cow horns filled with manure moonlight rituals associated with biodynamic winemaking). Sticking to a consume-what-you-grow organic farming ethos, the farm is working towards closing the loop of using what’s on the property to cultivate plants, including making their own compost teas, opting out of crop sprays in favor of leveraging predator mites and beneficial fungi, operating as a no-till farm to create a nutrient-rich, living soil and micro ecosystems tended to by Mother Nature and water sourced from an artesian well.

Lex discusses how he’s been able to successfully implement a lean seed-to-store sustainability model as an independent farmer with multi-state operations, diving into the challenges of running a cannabis business in existing and emerging markets, and creating a truly inclusive marketing campaign.

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