We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Amanda Reiman a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Amanda thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. How did you get your first job in the field that you practice in today?

I had been engaged in cannabis activism since I was an undergraduate in the 1990’s. However, back in those days, there really weren’t any paying jobs in cannabis, save for a handful of advocacy organizations. I decided to pursue a masters in social work and then a PhD in social welfare with the hopes of being in a position to change the laws about cannabis and drug use in general. I did my doctoral dissertation on medical cannabis dispensaries in 2006. After completing my education, I was doing a post doctoral fellowship at UC Berkeley. It is often expected that post docs will apply for government grants and keep working in their chosen field. Well, the government funding for my chosen field was all about studying the negative effects of cannabis, and how to keep it out of the hands of teens. My mentor at the time told me that, if I relied on government funding, I would likely not get to study what was interesting to me (cannabis as medicine, harm reduction and drug law reform). And, if these were the areas I was interested in, I would likely have to go out on my own. I left the post doc and took a position in academic administration. I still longed to work in the cannabis space, which was still very nascent at the time (this was 2008). So, I reached out to a medical cannabis dispensary that was very well known in the area, and suggested that they hire me at their Director of Research and Patient Services. No dispensary had ever had this type of position, but I knew that access to their large patient population would help advance our knowledge of how people were using cannabis as a medicine, something the government was still not interested in finding out. They agreed, and that was my first paying job in the cannabis space. In that role, I did one of the first studies ever on the use of cannabis as a substitute for alcohol and other drugs, and established one of the first free medicine programs for low income patients. Two years later, the federal government shut down that dispensary, but I was able to take that experience and create a now decades old career in the cannabis field as a social scientist.

Amanda, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

As a social worker and harm reductionist, I understand the impact that prohibition has on the ability to talk about safe ways to consume illegal products. While cannabis was prohibited, consumers were not able to access scientifically backed information about the risks and benefits of consumption. Now that cannabis is legal in many places, balanced and objective information has been overshadowed by marketing and product promotion. In 2020, I founded Personal Plants, an educational platform dedicated to helping people develop healthy and balanced relationships with psychoactive plants like cannabis and mushrooms. As access to these plants increases, it is important that the public has balanced, science backed information about them to help them cut through the last remnants of reefer madness, and to see through the hype of marketing. Personal Plants hosts articles on safe consumption, the risks and benefits of use, and how to talk about these risks and benefits with teens, parents, and each other.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

When I first founded Personal Plants, I was trying to imagine a product that would carry the message. I tried a few things out, but, in the end, I realized that I should provide something that people needed, not an offering that I had to convince them they wanted. So, I pivoted from products to education. I came to the conclusion that the real need was not for another product, but for balanced, expert backed information so that people could make better decisions about their own use. That these discussions were not happening in the mainstream, and that my own background and expertise made me a uniquely qualified messenger.

If you could go back, would you choose the same profession, specialty, etc.?

Absolutely. I feel so blessed to be involved with this space. And the opportunity to be a part of something as it is going through historic changes in society is a once in a lifetime thing. People will talk about the shift of cannabis from illegal to legal for a long time. They will write about it and teach about it. I am very fortunate to have been a part of it from the beginning,

Contact Info:

• Website: www.mypersonalplants.com
• Instagram: @dr.amandareiman
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/amanda.reiman.5/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanda-reiman-phd-msw/
• Twitter: @AmandaReiman

Image Credits
Legalization pic: Josh Fogel