Global cannabis advocate and bestselling author Dasheeda Dawson, who is the Cannabis Program Manager for the City of Portland (OR), will teach The Retailing of Cannabis course in LIM College’s new master’s degree program in The Business of Cannabis this fall.
Dawson is the author of the workbook How to Succeed in the Cannabis Industry. In addition to managing her own brand (The WeedHead™), she has 20 years of business development and strategic management experience with companies that include Target and Victoria’s Secret. As a “corporate-to-cannabis crossover” and industry thought leader, Dawson has been featured in major media outlets such as The New York Times, LA Times, Essence, Vice, and the USA Today network. She was recently named to the High Times annual list of the 100 most influential figures in the cannabis space.
Currently, Dawson serves as Cannabis Program Manager for the City of Portland, overseeing all regulatory, licensing, compliance, and equity initiatives for the city’s legal cannabis industry.
In a December 2021 interview with Health magazine Dawson noted, “My goal is to help reeducate people—from legislators to community members—on how policy reform can be used as a vehicle to help repair communities by creating equal opportunities to benefit from the sales and use of cannabis.”
Dawson is a co-founder of Cannabis Health Equity Movement and is Chair of the Cannabis Regulators of Color Coalition. With her sisters Imani and Ice Dawson, Dawson also co-founded Community Education Advocacy Symposium & Expo, a Brooklyn-based nonprofit educating community across the country about the myriad opportunities in the cannabis industry.
She holds an MBA from Rutgers Business School and an undergraduate degree in molecular biology from Princeton University.
LIM College's Bachelor of Business Administration and Master of Professional Studies programs in The Business of Cannabis will launch in the Fall of 2022.
