Mainstreaming Psychedelic Weed Witchery with Lulu Tsui of On The Revel
From growing up in an Oregon hippie cannafamily to building the next generation of cannabis covens using magic, moon cycles, and metrics
Hi everyone,
Sorry for the delay. Turns out pursuing an intensive certification program while embarking on a wellness journey no one asked for takes up a considerable amount of time. Fortunately, I had a clear morning, some Mac 1, and a solid amount of can-do inspiration from this week’s guest to power through this beautifully sunny wake ‘n bake. Now you have a new podcast episode—you’re welcome!
On the show today: Lulu Tsui (that’s pronounced SWAY), Co-Founder and Chief Experience Officer at On The Revel, a curated educational and networking experience series aimed at fostering an inclusive, collaborative, and flourishing cannabis sector. She is also President of the Cannabis Media Council, an organization dedicated to destigmatizing and normalizing cannabis using the power of traditional media (which coincidentally just had its first ad placement for its “I’m High Right Now” campaign featured in the latest Vanity Fair!). On top of all that, she’s the User Experience and Research Advisor at Oakland Hyphae, the minds behind the Oakland Psychedelic Conference and Psilocybin Cup. This woman knows how to get it done.
Lulu is a force and a true wandering weed witch full of cannabis magic, both literally and metaphorically. Immigrating to the U.S. with her family in 1980 from northern China, Lulu was taken under the wing of cannafamily aunties and uncles within the “super hippie utopia” of Eugene, Oregon. Rooted early within the subculture gave her a unique line of sight into cannabis and psychedelics before they became global behemoths, laying the groundwork for her unconventional career.
Preferring the bright lights of the city to small town living, she jumped into the tech industry in 1994 where she began working as a user experience designer and researcher long before these jobs titles even existed. Flash forward to 2015 when she was at the University of Washington, many of her friends had entered the legal cannabis game and tapped her to help optimize seed-to-sale tracking software. Deciding to stick around, she joined a budding Tier 3 grower and producer where she was able to truly dig into the supply chain while working on the fringe of new market expansion.
While many jobs require a considerable amount of business travel, in the cannabis industry it can often feel like time travel. Getting an upper edge on cannabis R&D across the U.S. and Canada, she spent the past 16 years bouncing between California and New York while living the dream: a bi-coastal lifestyle supported by a job you actually love. Still, as the industry moved at rapid-fire pace into the future, she often found herself facing a very tired and outdated dilemma: being the only one in the room who looked like her.
“A lot of women are out in the front of the house in the marketing, advertising, media—I really got to experience the supply chain side,” she says. Suddenly, everything clicked and all the pieces began to fall into place.
Even as markets add restorative justice efforts to their newly minted legal landscapes, diversity remains a huge problem within all of them. Which is why Lulu’s work with On The Revel is so essential. When she met co-founder Jacobi Holland in 2016, she says that it was the first time she felt like she could have a real, honest conversation about the things they were seeing and experiencing. Joining forces, they decided to help amplify these discussions between New Yorkers and entrepreneurs invested in cannabis to push towards building an inclusive, diverse, and vibrant community.
“At that time, there were a lot of meetings about advocacy, there were meetings about investing and fundraising, which just didn’t make sense back then, but there was no one there talking about the ground truth of what was happening in these different markets,” she says. “Jacobi has come up from janitor to analyst in Colorado with Mindful—one of the first vertical operators. It was the first time I met someone in New York talking about his truth from his experience and what he was seeing.”
Truth and transparency are the ethos that drive On The Revel events, where information is power and the goal is to empower those who want to join the cannabis industry with tools for success. Bringing together legacy operators, legislators, and everyone in-between, the events touch every facet of the industry, from how to work with aldermen in your neighborhood to open a dispensary and getting venture capital for your business to frequently asked legal and internal housekeeping questions, like how to file taxes and the importance of meeting proper codes for the Fire Department.
“Please, please, please always do your due diligence. Don’t be afraid to ask if someone is a good partner,” she stresses.
Above all, the event is all about building a community of dope people. That includes: rappers like Vic Mensa, whose brand 93Boyz is Chicago’s first black-owned cannabis label; former NBA player-turned-CEO Al Harrington of Viola; New York rapper Styles P, whose Juices for Life and Farmacy for Life stores are serving low-income neighborhoods with high quality food; an introduction to New York’s first CAURD recipients; and a very, very long list of excellent brands and incredible resources. A quick scroll through their YouTube page reveals a robust feed of TedTalk-style discussions on virtually every entry point for a career in cannabis. Bonus: the events are super affordable, because business opportunities shouldn’t be limited to the wealthy.
“New York has always had cannabis here, so it’s always been part of culture,” she says. “It’s just been really beautiful to see friends that we’ve been waiting for this moment in New York to come online to actually start doing it.”
On the latest Pipe Dreams podcast, Lulu discusses watching the rise of cannabis coast-to-coast through a variety of lenses, the challenges legacy operators are facing who want to legitimize their businesses against the gray market, the overlap between cannabis and psychedelics, using UX to get to know plant medicine users, her opinion on the New York roll out, what makes cannabis culture here unique, getting elders on board to shape the next generation, plus the rituals behind her weed witch lifestyle (she swears by drinking moon-activated Tiger’s Eye crystal water).
Listen, like and share the episode. Follow On The Revel on Instagram, YouTube, and their Dope People community portal. Mark your calendars for the June 22 Buyers Club event at Basilica Hudson in Hudson, NY, and on August 26 when they’ll be hosting their annual block party at Restoration Plaza in Brooklyn. And make sure to follow The Weed Witch for all of the latest and greatest.
Have someone in mind that you think should be on the show? Drop a line at itstheweedwitch@gmail.com.
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