Open this photo in gallery Lifford Cannabis Solutions (LCS) was founded by cannabis advocate Lisa Campbell in order to bring the most premium selections of cannabis to consumers. Glenn Lowson photo/The Globe and Mail

Part of cannabis and small business and retail Expand stories



Go to more stories on the business of cannabis

This is part of Stepping Up, a series introducing Canadians to their country’s new sources of inspiration and leadership.

LISA CAMPBELL Location: Toronto Biggest professional accomplishment so far: We’re going to be included in the Health Canada edibles consultations. For the past few years, we’ve been shouting from the sidelines about what we think legalization should look like. This is one of the first times I’ve been invited to the table as an expert. Best piece of advice: You need to stop doing illegal things. If you want to be included in this industry, you have to start being compliant.

At the dawn of legal marijuana, Lisa Campbell is determined to make women a key part of the business.

“The cannabis industry is predominately run by white men,” says Ms. Campbell, who is so passionate about her mission, she rhymes off related statistics without missing a beat. Women, she says, occupy just 5 per cent of publicly traded licensed cannabis producers’ boards, compared with 12 per cent of other companies on the TSX.

As chief executive of Lifford Cannabis Solutions, a nine-month old subsidiary of her family’s wine and spirits agency of the same name, which essentially functions as a distributor, she is one of few female leaders in the emerging space. In her role, Ms. Campbell helps companies navigate the cannabis industry and guides their products to shelves across the country within the legal market.

But before becoming a boss in the business, the 35-year-old was already a leading proponent for cannabis legalization. She’s the co-founder of the Green Market, a series of underground pop-ups – which would reveal their locations the day of – where people could buy infused edible products. “When I first crossed over, a huge concern to me was, everyone’s gonna call me a sellout. Now that I’m in a legal business, I’m focused on getting everyone around me legalized. Before, I was just breaking the law.”

Story continues below advertisement

Her phone buzzes. It’s a text from a B.C. cannabis grower who has a large profile in what is known as “the grey market” – illegal but operating almost out in the open – and is ready to go legit. This is what Ms. Campbell does, leveraging her network to bring existing brands to market, working with entrepreneurs who want to transition from the underground economy but may lack the skills or the capital to navigate legalization.

But Ms. Campbell never set out to helm a company. After joining the family business, spending time everywhere from the warehouse to accounting, she began part-time work at Toronto’s Queen West Community Health Centre. Her experience there brought her to a realization. “I have this memory of being at the needle exchange and seeing people passed out from alcohol … and then walking down King Street to go to the Lifford Grand Tasting, this immaculate affair with all these businessmen with their suits and Rolexes, superdrunk, and being like, ‘I don’t want to sell alcohol. I don’t want to market alcohol.’”

Deciding to focus on harm reduction, in 2009 she quit the family business, finished her master’s degree and went to work full time at the health centre. This led to drug-policy activism and, eventually, the Green Market. Believing that legalization was inevitable, Ms. Campbell was drawn to what she saw as acts of civil disobedience, helping connect small-batch craft producers (predominately women) with clientele.

The family had been considering entering the cannabis market even while Ms. Campbell conducted the pop-ups, but the fact remained that they were illegal, which did not thrill her mom and dad. “There was a lot of tension,” Ms. Campbell recalls.

Open this photo in gallery At the moment, Ms. Campbell is most excited about the partnerships she’s developing with women in Jamaica and Colombia.

Then, in 2017, Constellation Brands, the U.S.-owned producer of Corona beer, started buying up what is likely to become a controlling share of Canopy Growth Corp., Canada’s largest licensed cannabis producer. “It kind of gave permission for the alcohol industry to say, ‘Okay, this is happening. This isn’t a trend we can ignore,’" Ms. Campbell says. At that point, Lifford created the subsidiary with her as CEO.

She started work in earnest at the subsidiary in January, 2018, but as with any reformed radical, Ms. Campbell is slightly nostalgic for her former freedom and street cred, although she sees the upside of having bought into the system.

Story continues below advertisement

“You shift your perspective as an activist from, ‘Everything is wrong, nothing’s good enough,’ to ‘Okay, legalization and government [aren’t] perfect. But there is an abundance of opportunity where everyone can be included.’”

Now, she is using her legitimized platform to help organizations such as Women Grow and Global Women’s Cannabis Summit, both of which she helped found, give visibility and access to marginalized people in the industry. “Initially, we focused on gender as our main issue for equity in cannabis. But as the cannabis industry continues to evolve, it’s pretty transparent that it’s very white-dominated,” she says.

“Lisa has always pushed for the diversity of minority groups, people of colour, in the cannabis sector,” says Tyler James, a friend of Ms. Campbell’s and director of the Ontario Cannabis Consumer & Retail Alliance. As a person of colour, he appreciated how Ms. Campbell “put me on her shoulders to assist the campaigns I’m working for, in terms of getting media attention, getting in front of the right policy-makers on the political side as well as the industry side.”

At the moment, Ms. Campbell is most excited about the partnerships she’s developing with women in Jamaica and Colombia.

“I’ve been really focusing on women, internationally, because I think this is an enormous opportunity, where borders are about to open. Now is the time for women all over the world who are in the cannabis industry to get serious, raise capital, so they can be at the same table as all these white dudes that are dominating the industry.”

Read more in the Stepping Up series:

Story continues below advertisement

Mississauga app developer matches high school students with volunteer hours to get excited about

Leading voice on food waste puts emphasis on cities to find solutions

Cannabis Amnesty founder pushing for change – and facts – around pardons for possession

A theatre company without a venue? Yeah, Why Not

Dalhousie Indigenous student showing Canada the way to reconciliation

Toronto human rights lawyer sounds the alarm on Canada’s plans to use AI in immigration

Story continues below advertisement

Vancouver teacher is schooling educators on the value of inclusive classrooms

How one artistic director is casting for more diversity on stage

The animation executive who makes parents' lives easier

How a research lab is taking lessons from music

Moms united in grief and new purpose: to change how addiction is treated in Canada

Halifax councillor inspiring youth to have a say in how their communities are built and run

Story continues below advertisement

At 21, this aerospace engineering student, former refugee has created her first invention