The Center for the Study of Cannabis and Social Policy’s (CASP) Core Network is only partially represented here by individuals engaged in current projects and administration.
Dr. Dominic Corva | CASP Founder & Executive Director | Political Geography Specialist
Dr. Dominic Corva is CASP’s Founder and Executive Director. Dr. Corva is the Co-Director of the Humboldt Institute of Interdisciplinary Marijuana Research (HIIMR) at Humboldt State University (HSU), where he is affiliated with the Department of Sociology; serves as Cannabis Policy Specialist for the California Center for Rural Policy (CCRP) at HSU, where he researches and writes Equity Assessments for jurisdictions in California; and serves on the Humboldt Area Peoples Archive‘s Board of Directors. He is also the co-editor, with Dr. Josh Meisel, of The Routledge Handbook of Post-Prohibition Cannabis Research forthcoming in September 2021. Dr. Corva’s research has been published in The International Journal of Drug Policy, Political Geography, The Annals of the Association of American Geographers, and ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies. His dissertation research examined the political economy of international drug policy in the Western Hemisphere, and his postdoctoral research focused on the political economy of cannabis agriculture in Southern Humboldt County.
Joy Beckerman | President of the Board of Directors | Founder, Hemp Ace International
Joy Beckerman is a grassroots activist and internationally renowned educator and hemp law and policy expert involved in the cannabis movements for over 30 years. Joy is a bi-coastal community organizer and works directly with lawmakers and regulators both proactively and upon request to draft and advocate for science-driven, equitable, and inclusive governance. Educated stewardship is Joy’s calling and driving force. Joy opened the first hemp store in the State of New York in the early 1990’s, and after an extensive and successful dual career in compliance and complex civil litigation in Seattle, Joy founded Hemp Ace International, a consulting, legal support, and expert witness firm serving the global community, in 2014. Joy is also Co-Founder and Senior Advisor to Colorado Hemp Works, America’s first post-prohibition hemp grain processing facility, as well as host of the popular podcast Hemp Barons. Joy frequently presents at conferences, colleges and universities, and is the recipient of the Hemp Industries Association’s 2019 Lifetime Achievement Award and Seattle Hempfest’s 2016 Outstanding Cannabis Activist Award. Among a legacy of non-profit leadership roles, Joy is a former member of the National Board of Directors of NORML, is the former President of the Hemp Industries Association, and is currently a leading Director of the U.S. Hemp Roundtable, consultant to the U.S. Hemp Building Association, and The Seminar Group’s National Hemp Continuing Legal Education Program Chair.
Sunil Kumar Aggarwal, M.D. Ph.D | Vice President of the Board of Directors | Co-Founder, AIMS Institute
Sunil Aggarwal, MD, PhD, FAAPMR, a Co-Founder of CASP, is a Board-Certified Physician in Hospice and Palliative Medicine and Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation as well as a Medical Geographer; and serves as the Past Chair of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine (AAHPM) Integrative Medicine Special Interest Group as well as an inaugural member of AAHPM’s Safe Use in Psychedelic-Assisted Therapies Forum. Dr. Aggarwal was named as a Top 20 Emerging Leader by the AAHPM. He is an Affiliate Assistant Clinical Professor in Rehabilitation Medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine, an Affiliate Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography, and an Affiliate Clinical Faculty with Bastyr University. Dr. Aggarwal completed his MD and PhD degrees at the University of Washington and completed his Residency and Fellowship at Virginia Mason Medical Center, NYU Langone Health, and the NIH Clinical Center. He is a Co-Founder, Co-Director and Practitioner at the Advanced Integrative Medical Science (AIMS) Institute in Seattle, a multispecialty teaching clinic and research institute offering cutting edge care in oncology, psychiatry, neurology, rehabilitation, pain, and palliative care. Dr. Aggarwal also serves as an Associate Hospice Medicine Director and On-Call Palliative Physician for MultiCare Health System. A former National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow, Dr. Aggarwal completed his PhD dissertation on “The Medical Geography of Cannabinoid Botanicals in Washington State: Access, Delivery, and Distress.” He is presently a co-investigator on the AIMS Cancer Outcomes Study, the AIMS Medical Outcomes Study, and the Canadian Psilocybin Safety Initiative Registry. He has published over three dozen peer-reviewed articles and book chapters that have been cited over 800 times and growing per Google Scholar, and he is honored to serve as a member of the Board of Directors of End of Life Washington.
Aaron Varney | Secretary of the Board of Directors | Co-Founder & Director, Dockside Cannabis | Ganjier Instructor
Aaron Varney’s passion for cannabis stretches over the last 20 years with extensive experience in cultivation, education and retail. He is Co-Founder and Director at Dockside Cannabis, an award-winning chain of retail cannabis stores in Seattle as well as the longest operating medically-endorsed retailer in Washington State. Prior to establishing Dockside Cannabis, Aaron co-founded the medical dispensary Dockside Co-op and obtained an MBA in Sustainable Business from Presidio Graduate School with a focus on entrepreneurship. Aaron is a public speaker and an instructor for The Ganjier Cannabis Sommelier Certification Program.
Nazareth Victoria | Board of Directors | Former Cannabis POW | Former Licensed Cannabis Producer/Processor
Nazareth Victoria owned The Four Twenty Collection, a Washington State licensed cannabis producer/processor from 2014 to 2018. He was one of the first 50 producer/processors to be approved by the Washington State Liquor & Cannabis Board. In addition to being an experienced businessman, Naz is well-versed in the history of cannabis markets and supports outdoor, sun grown cannabis for environmental and economic reasons. His facility was located in Okanagon, Washington, where the first efforts to create a national Sun Growers Association emerged. Naz brings a unique perspective to CASP as a former Federal Prisoner of the Drug War, and enjoyed the irony of making a legal living doing something for which he had not that long before been arrested, prosecuted, and convicted.
Don E Wirtshafter | Board of Directors | Founder, Cannabis Museum | Global Cannabis & Hemp Movement Pioneer
Don E Wirtshafter, from Athens, Ohio, is a cannabis and counterculture pioneer at the center of many watershed organizational and entrepreneurial moments in contemporary cannabis history. Don E owned and operated the Ohio Hempery, which not only broke ground for bringing hemp products to the U.S. in the early 1990’s but helped nurture and develop hemp and cannabis organizations throughout the years, including Seattle Hempfest. Don E helped found several leading companies and served on the National Board of Directors of NORML. Don E has been active globally as a cannabis and hemp consultant. His focus is South America, principally Colombia, where he has established residence. Don E’s main project is the creation of the Cannabis Museum. The project showcases the world’s largest collection of cannabis medicine bottles dating from the 19th and early 20th Centuries. The exhibit is accompanied by Don E’s comprehensive lecture on the First Golden Age of the Cannabis Apothecary highlighting the herb’s previous mainstream use as medicine in the United States.
Nicole Riggs | CASP Affiliate Researcher | Board of Directors, Humboldt Community Business Development Center | Founder, Manifesto Strategies
Nicole Riggs is the Founder of Manifesto Synergies, a consulting firm for brand strategies in the Humboldt cannabis industry. The agency’s core services are content creation, website development, strategic planning, key accounts programs and experiential marketing. Manifesto Synergies has executed dozens of campaigns from curated events to sponsored content across the state. Prior to Manifesto Synergies, Nicole was for nine years Director of Marketing and Business Development at Marimba One, an Arcata-based manufacturer of fine concert percussion instruments where she analyzed trends, oversaw public relations and coordinated campaigns with allies in the industry. She conducted market research and integrated human-centered design into product innovation. Nicole’s personal hobby is to translate Tibetan texts. She sits on the Board of Directors of the Humboldt Community Business Development Center and is an Affiliate Researcher with CASP. She has lived in Humboldt for 19 years.
Dr. Tony Silvaggio | CASP Senior Research Associate | Environmental Sociology Specialist | Graduate Coordinator & Associate Professor & Chair, Humboldt State University
Dr. Tony Silvaggio is a Sociologist specializing in the areas of Survey Research Methods, Environmental Sociology, and Community Organizing. He is currently a faculty member in the Department of Sociology and teaches courses in the Environment and Community Masters Program at Humboldt State University. He is also a founding faculty member of the Humboldt Institute of Interdisciplinary Marijuana Research (HIIMR). His research on the environmental impacts of cannabis agriculture has been reported on in The New York Times and Mother Jones Magazine.
Great info🌱
Let me know when you need your next graphic design project or website done well.
Good Nature Publishing is based in Seattle and works with green groups across the country to help with their communications and story telling.
Look forward to being of service. Good story in the NYT today.
TSC
Thanks Timothy! We are in bootstrap mode right now (spend money very efficiently to produce intellectual services and public information) with the web site itself (and indeed marketing) as the lowest priority for our core mutual aid group’s attention. Not that they aren’t important, but that’s not really anyone on our full time core team’s specialty so we are finding folks who believe in what we are doing and want to help promote it, then following their lead.