How Mara Gordon got her start

When Mara Gordon started using medical cannabis there wasn’t any lab testing — or any way to know how much of each cannabinoid or terpene was in a given strain . There was definitely no way of ensuring that you got the same effect from it consistently.

So she drew on her training as a process engineer and decided to start doing it herself.

Gordon has been featured in the Netflix documentary, Weed the People, and owns and operates two medical cannabis companies. 

One of the things she does is collect and analyze data about cannabis products and how patients with different medical conditions respond to them. All of that data is packaged into software doctors can use to manage their patients’ medical marijuana treatment.

“I know how to collect data. I know how to analyze data. I know how to make incredibly good medicine, but [doctors] have to be the ones managing [their] patients’ care,” Gordon says on The Cannabis Enigma Podcast.

What’s one of the most surprising things she’s learned from all of that data? “The lack of correlation between the weight of the patient and the dose,” Gordon says. “That was shocking.”

This episode was originally released in December 2019.

Produced by Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man and Elana Goldberg, and edited and mixed by Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man. The Cannabis Enigma Podcast is a co-production of Americans for Safe Access and The Cannigma. Music by Desca.