After he left a position at Microsoft as a corporate strategy manager, Seattle resident Jamen Shively wanted to do something that made him feel better at the end of the day. So he decided to get into the marijuana business.
With Washington state's recent passage of a law that makes marijuana posession, growth and sale legal for those over 21, Shively hopes to use his premium brand of bud to build the next Starbucks, according to the above local news report from Seattle's KIRO TV.
“By creating the category of premium marijuana, we want to position it similar to a fine cognac, a fine brandy, a fine cigar. Something to be savored and enjoyed in small quantities by responsible adults,” Shively says in an on-camera interview, looking and sounding like a young, totally mellow, Bill Gates.
Following in the footsteps of Jameson whiskey's John Jameson campaign, or Dos Equis's "The Most Interesting Man in the World," Shively already has his weed's mascot picked out— his great grandfather Diego Pellicer.
"He was supplying hemp rope, which came from the marijuana plant, to the Spanish armada during the Spanish-American War," he says of Pellicer. "So I've got marijuana in my blood, so to speak."
Amazing.
Washington wasn't the only state to legalize marijuana in the November elections— Colorado did, too, with some suggesting California and/or New York could be next. As more states move to turn pot into a legitimate, regulated enterprise, Shively wants to be the first to capitalize on the budding industry.
"The buzz is in the air," Shively says. "This is a new industry in the making and it's going to be a giant industry."
Believe that.
[via Beta Beat]
