The complicated story of how marijuana went from back alleys to a multibillion-dollar American industry.
In Geek Girl Rising (2017), former ABC news correspondent Cabot spotlighted successful professional women in the male-dominated tech industry. Here, she applies the same investigative reporting skills to the now-mushrooming cannabis industry, producing an intriguing, character-driven narrative about “a complicated and controversial topic.” Wisely, the author focuses on primary figures who have not only profited from this new enterprise, but changed the culture around the substance as well—e.g., Beth Stavola, a Jersey Shore mother who attained wealth in the Arizona medical marijuana business; Wanda James, the first Black entrepreneur to own a business license in the cannabis industry; Bruce Linton, the founder of the first marijuana company to trade publicly; and Mel MacDonald, “former U.S. Attorney appointed by President Ronald Reagan, fifth-generation Mormon, elder in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), and unexpected supporter of legalizing medical marijuana.” Perhaps the most interesting figure is Jeff Danzer, a home cook who has sought to match the various flavors and aromas of cannabis to a wide variety of dishes as well as distilling the plant down its purest, most delectable essences. Danzer created cuisine so delightful that Kate Hudson served up his treats at her star-studded birthday party, and he eventually earned the nickname “Julia Child of Weed.” Another prominent figure is Ted Chung, a Wharton alum who leads Snoop Dogg’s cannabis investment strategy. On stage in 2019, Snoop noted, “I love the fact that I used to be a bad guy known for smoking weed like you used to read about me….Now it’s all love and it’s all peace and all understanding.” Indeed—and Cabot covers much of the relevant territory, from entrepreneurship to women’s health to social justice.
An entertaining story of the curious arc that brought the cannabis industry out of the shadows.Pub Date: Aug. 11, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-984826-24-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Currency
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2020
Categories: BODY, MIND & SPIRIT | CURRENT EVENTS & SOCIAL ISSUES | BUSINESS | ISSUES & CONTROVERSIES | ENTREPRENUERSHP | ECONOMICS
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
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A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
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“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
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