This summer, two recognized voices are taking their work on the road together. The State [of] Flower Tour; a multi-state experience bringing policy, culture, workforce development, and storytelling to cannabis markets across the Northeast and beyond, launches as a collaboration between internationally known cannabis journalist Veronica “Vee” Castillo; The Traveling Cannabis Writer, and Dasheeda Dawson, cannabis strategist, former government regulator, and founder of The WeedHead™ & Company. But the story of how this tour came together isn’t your typical business partnership. It started with parallel roads, social media follows, and a sunset dinner in Thailand.
Two Different Paths, Same Mission
For years, Dasheeda Dawson and I have been moving through cannabis from different angles. I’ve spent almost a decade on the ground with my pen… traveling state to state, the Caribbean, and over to Asia, documenting cultivators, operators, and the people building this industry one story at a time. I’ve done this through features in more than 25 publications and my book Cannabis Legacy Chronicles.
Dasheeda has been in the rooms where policy gets written. As a former government regulator who led cannabis regulatory offices in both New York City and Portland, Oregon, she’s shaped the frameworks that determine who gets licenses, who gets access, and how legal markets actually function. She’s also the author of the bestselling workbook How to Succeed in the Cannabis Industry, now in its fourth edition, and co-founder of the Cannabis Regulators of Color Coalition.
Two different paths: storytelling and policy, but the same core mission: make sure the people who built this industry don’t get written out of it.
From Social Media to Sunset in Thailand
We followed each other’s work for years. Her from the policy side, me from the storytelling side. Both traveling, both documenting, both watching cannabis evolve in real time. We connected on social media, exchanged messages; but we never met face to face until MJBIZCON 2025.
When we finally shook hands at that conference, something clicked. We’d been circling the same questions from different angles; asking about access, equity, and who gets to succeed in legal cannabis. We just had different tools to answer them.
Later, we both ended up in Thailand. Pure coincidence; separate trips that overlapped. We met for sunset dinner and a sesh in a lounge while I was on the High Road Beyond Borders Tour- Thailand, and had the kind of conversation that only happens when two people who’ve been doing the work get to compare notes without a conference badge between them.
That’s when we started talking about building bridges.
What The State [of] Flower Tour Actually Is
The State [of] Flower Tour launches this summer as a multi-state cannabis experience traveling through major legal markets across the Northeast and beyond. Starting in New Jersey and New York, the tour will move through: Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, with additional stops planned in Florida and Nevada before ending in Philadelphia for Black Cannabis Week 2026.
Each stop features programming tailored to the local market, including fireside conversations, educational workshops, facility tours, networking events, She Blaze Podcast activations, job fairs, and community-centered cultural experiences. The tour will also generate original content through podcast episodes, mini-documentaries, written features, and behind-the-scenes storytelling distributed across social platforms and partner media outlets.
In New Jersey, I’m partnering with Fame Neal, founder of Exhale Social PRO and recognized content creator and event producer, to develop the state’s launch programming, which will spotlight women in cannabis through roundtable discussions, creative events, dispensary activations, and media production.
Why This Matters Now
The tour arrives at a critical moment for cannabis. While legal markets continue expanding, many aspiring entrepreneurs, workers, students, and communities most impacted by prohibition still face barriers to access, information, visibility, and opportunity. States are still navigating equity implementation, workforce development, and the broader implications of federal reform; like Reclassification from I to III.
What we’re building is a tour that connects the pieces of the cannabis industry that too often operate separately: policy and culture, education and entrepreneurship, regulators and operators, media and community.
“After more than a decade working across cannabis policy, business, science, and community development, I’ve seen the same pattern play out in every market,” Dasheeda said in the tour’s official press release. “We didn’t just build an industry. We built it in pieces. This tour is about bringing those pieces together while creating real pathways for education, entrepreneurship, workforce development, and community connection.”
From Parallel Roads to Partnership
Some collaborations start with a handshake in a boardroom. This one started with sunset, cannabis, and honest conversation halfway around the world. Now it’s becoming a multi-state tour designed to connect the people, policy, and culture shaping cannabis across the country.
For Dasheeda and I, this tour represents what happens when an industry storyteller and a person helping shape its infrastructure decide to build something together. She brings the policy expertise, regulatory insight, and workforce development framework. I bring the storytelling, on-the-ground documentation, and connections to the people making it happen in dispensaries, cultivation facilities, and communities.
Because the reality is, we didn’t just build a cannabis industry. We built it in pieces. And if we want it to work for the people who’ve been in this fight from the beginning, not just the people who showed up when it became legal… we have to start connecting those pieces.
This summer, that’s exactly what we’re doing.
Veronica “Vee” Castillo is founder of the Traveling Cannabis Writer, an international plant medicine storyteller and journalist with more than seven years documenting cannabis culture globally. Author of Cannabis Legacy Chronicles and former communications director for a leading minority cannabis trade association, she helps businesses transform their stories into strategic content driving measurable growth.