NUGL: INDUSTRY INTERVIEW
JAMIE EVANS: CHANGING THE CBD GAME
Meet Jamie Evans. He survived cancer,
uprooted his life to escape prohibition, and is
making waves in the cannabis industry by grow-
ing hemp strains that look, smell, and smoke
just like their high-THC counterparts, from Sil-
ver Haze to Purple Gas. Hemp, marijuana’s ge-
netically similar and yet wildly different cousin is
extremely low in THC (less than .3 percent, ac-
cording to federal regulations) and high in non-
psychoactive cannabinoids, meaning it won’t
get you high no matter how much you smoke.
While recreational cannabis consumers may
not find the idea of weed that doesn’t get you
high groundbreaking, it’s very significant for
the vast community of medical cannabis pa-
tients who can benefit greatly from other can-
nabinoids, such as CBD, CBN, and CBG. While
further research is necessary, there is abundant
anecdotal evidence and a handful of studies in-
dicating the benefits of cannabinoids for a vari-
26 NUGL Magazine
ety of conditions, from drug-resistant epilepsy
to chronic pain and inflammation to, in Jamie’s
case, cancer.
Jamie is a longtime cannabis consumer, but
his diagnosis with leukemia in September of
2015 changed his relationship to the herb. After
being told that he would need chemotherapy for
the rest of his life, Jamie got tired of “being filled
up with narcotics [and] taking a pill for a pill for
a pill” and started experimenting with cannabis
again, this time not as a recreational consumer,
but as a patient. He left his home state of Utah
in 2016 for Colorado, forced to leave behind his
family in order to pursue continued cannabinoid
therapy free from threat of prosecution.
Shortly after arriving in Colorado, Jamie got
his medical license and began working with a
doctor and the person who would become his
business partner, using high doses of cannabi-
noids in the form of Rick Simpson Oil (RSO) to