Editor’s Note:
In the early days of Marijuana Venture, we spent a lot of time reading the big news headlines about legalization, the rules and regulations, the goings-on in Colorado and, of course, the people drawing the most attention to themselves.
To be honest, there were a few people who fit this latter bill … but possibly none more outlandish and obnoxious than Jamen Shively, the former Microsoft manager who started his PR campaign for Diego Pellicer almost two years before we launched the magazine. The Seattle Times, the Daily Mail, MSNBC, Geewire and dozens of other publications wrote mostly glowing articles about the man and his grand plan in 2012 and 2013.
I’m happy to say we never bought into the hype, never interviewed Mr. Shively and gave very little coverage to the ostentatious Diego stores and brand. That said, ignoring Diego also meant we completely missed the fraud that came later, with CEO Ron Throgmartin eventually being sentenced to six years in prison.
Every industry has its big talkers, but legal cannabis has seemingly attracted the biggest of the big talkers — and more than its fair share of outright hucksters, unintentional frauds and monumental business failures.
In 2012, shortly after Washington voters passed Initiative 502 legalizing recreational marijuana, a former Microsoft product manager started a PR tour to claim he was creating the first high-end brand in the legal cannabis space, touting a $10 million planned capital raise and a family heritage that included hemp farming.
Jamen Shively founded Diego Pellicer and served as its original CEO, proclaiming the luxury brand would be similar to premium cigars or cognacs and projecting monthly profits of $120,000 per shop. It’s not clear whether the comparisons came from Shively himself or reporters looking for a hook, but news coverage dubbed the boastful entrepreneur “the Bill Gates of Bud” and his hopeful operation “the Starbucks of Pot.” Shively called legal cannabis the opportunity of a lifetime — an epiphany he had “after a bong hit.”
“We are going to mint more millionaires than Microsoft with this business,” he told the Seattle Times in a 2012 interview.
“Diego Pellicer is to marijuana what Davidoff is to cigars, Godiva to chocolate and Starbucks to coffee,” the company stated in a filing with the SEC.
Mark Kleiman, the late UCLA professor who helped Washington state develop some of its drug policies, was blunt about how crazy it was to hold a press conference to tout your quasi-legal marijuana business.
“My real suspicion is that they intend to fleece investors,” he told Seattle Weekly.
Although Shively gained a ton of press coverage, the complicated business faced legal problems from the start and never lived up to its hype. Behind the Diego Pellicer brand were multiple independent businesses, including real estate leasers, management companies and consumer-facing licensed retailers in Colorado and Washington. Diego Pellicer Worldwide, Inc. was the publicly traded entity at the middle of the enterprise, “a premium marijuana brand and management company,” according to a 2019 press release. “When federally legal, DPWW is positioned to become a national, vertically integrated marijuana company.”
A 2015 Seattle Times article poked fun at Diego Pellicer’s problems, with the lede, “The Top 5 Things You Don’t Want to Say when introducing a new public company.” No. 1 on the list was: “We’re not sure what the U.S. Attorney wants, but in the worst-case scenario, our officers could be imprisoned and our investors hosed.”
At the time, with Phillip Gay having taken over the CEO role, Diego Pellicer Worldwide acknowledged it had received a subpoena from the U.S. Attorney, only had one real paying customer and no knowledge of when it would be able to collect any money from that customer, was lending money to keep its sole customer running.
A third CEO, Ron Throgmartin, took the reins in 2015. Over the next five to eight years, the Diego Pellicer branded retail stores in Colorado and Washington would be sold off or rebranded.
Throgmartin was convicted in 2023 for his role in a cannabis-and-cattle Ponzi scheme he ran from late 2017 to early 2019, resulting in a six-year prison sentence. In August 2019, Throgmartin was featured in Marijuana Business Magazine, giving advice on the industry and talking about craft cannabis.
“We only work with credible vendors — vendors who have good reputations, who are ethical, who have integrity,” he told the publication — apparently without a hint of irony.