County partly until I could afford to buy a quarter pound , then the other half I would run to San Diego and sell to tourists on the beach and started that little circuit back and forth .”
His hard work was soon noticed after he was hired to paint the exterior of a dispensary in Mendocino owned by one of the pioneers in the cannabis game , who was close friends with Eddie Lap and Jack Heirer . His name was Les Crain , a member of that whole original gang of outlaws and pioneers of the movement — some of the original advocates of the plant .
Within 30 days of meeting Crain , Briggs became the manager of his farm , but later that year , after their next harvest , Crain didn ’ t have enough money to pay the trimmers on the farm . “ I asked him to trust me enough to go and try to drum up some business for him with some of the first southern CA dispensaries like the West Side Collective , the Pharmacy , and the Yellow House ,” recalled Briggs . He bridged the gap between Southern CA distributors and Northern CA growers , taking back enough money for Crain to clear up all his debts with the workers that season .
Briggs quickly went from working for Crain to becoming his partner .
“ I ’ m decent at hustling , but my goal was always to earn enough to be on the hill farming . But modeling out those structures like I did 20 years ago is a lot of what I do now ,” explained Briggs . “ I ’ m helping with the retail , with the SOPs , with the systems , but what I want to be doing is growing cannabis or washing the hash . Even still , I ’ m pretty hands-on . As soon as I can be done with talking to front offices , talking to investors , training staff , I ’ m anxious to roll up my sleeves and play with the plants or wash the hash .”
In April of 2023 , Briggs dove into a partnership with Wavelength Extracts in SW Missouri , which currently has an indoor and outdoor grow area . It is in the process of adding a 12,000-square-foot mixed light greenhouse facility as well as expanding the outdoor grow area from a three-acre plot with around 100,000 square feet of canopy space to seven acres with 250,000 square feet .
“ It will have the indoor , the mixed light , and the outdoor . That ’ s right where you want to be in this kind of market because each of those different styles has a different place in the market for the products and skews it can make . The larger outdoor area will really help with the extracts , and the mixed light greenhouse is going to be putting out my favorite herb with light assist [ a greenhouse that has lights and climate control in it to supplement weather conditions but harnesses natural environmental conditions ]. The best style of herb comes from that style of growing ,” said Briggs . Since the state only allows 300,000 square feet of flowering canopy space at one time per cannabis grow license , they will alternate between flowering spaces depending on climates and growing seasons .
We will check back in with Briggs and his team later this year , closer to harvest season , and test some of these new brands coming to Missouri , including Uncle Mac ’ s solventless brand , South Face Farms Flower , and those genetics included in Wavelength Extracts distillates .
▲ Mac Briggs at the future site of the Wavelength greenhouse in Fort Ashby , West Virgina .
www . WavelengthExtracts . com
Meanwhile , stay turned to the next issue when we ’ ll feature more fascinating individuals like Brigg ’ s , their displacement stories , finding a home in Missouri , and successes within the industry .
▲ The Wavelength Extracts grow team in the cultivation field in SW Missouri this past summer .
Clayton Stallings is the Director of Sales & Marketing for
The EVOLUTION Magazine
February 2024 33