Leaked Email: JAD's Journey Through Self Sabotage

Followers of @Cannabis.Connoisseur.007 on Instagram were greeted with an explosive story that first broke on the evening of Thursday, October 26th, and was further confirmed with documentation on Friday, October 27th. Affecting Colorado cannabis businesses and consumers alike, the caption read:

"Urgent Community Alert: A local cannabis bar owner, Stacey Davis ('Jads Mile High Smoke') in Denver Thorton area has been secretly sabotaging our [cannabis] gatherings, reaching out to government and MED officials with the intent to dismantle our events and harm businesses as well as individuals that are crucial to our community’s vibrancy and connection all this year and possibly more." 

Pictured in the post is screen shot evidence of malicious emails from Stacey Davis, wife of Josh Davis, and co-owner of Jad's, to multiple government and MED officials, targeting over 35 cannabis companies for reported violations. In other words, acting as an industry-wide "snitch". The string of emails appear to have began on July 20th, 2023.

Coincidentally (or maybe not so coincidentally), Westword published an article on July 31st, 2023, titled "Denver Cracks Down on Unlicensed Events Allowing Marijuana Consumption".  Several companies named in the article who were recipients of violations, including Marijuana Mansion, Tetra Lounge, Ant Life and others, also happened to be named in the email from the owners of Jad's.

Ever since the Colorado Legislature enacted House Bill 19-1230 in 2019, the licensing of marijuana hospitality and sales businesses have been mandated by the ever-watchful Marijuana Enforcement Division (MED). But it doesn't stop there. The MED, flexing its regulatory muscles, has set forth strict guidelines to govern the operations of these establishments. Without the necessary license, no one, not an individual nor an entity, can legally host marijuana hospitality-related experiences in the state of Colorado. The license grants just one year of legal operation too, so the prospect of annual renewals hovers like a cloud over current and wishful license holders.

Jad's, and the owners of Jad's alike, have numerous contradictory public statements that don't align with their own stated principles or the macro-perspectives of the cannabis community. On their own website, they claim to have a "passion for normalizing cannabis consumption", yet they've outright ostracized and demonized a large portion of the Colorado community for using cannabis in very normalized settings. In their series of incendiary emails, they also made light of cannabis consumpton methods such as "1 pound joints", but then just this month (October 2023), owner Josh Davis was on LinkedIn talking about expanding hospitality laws to be in parity with the rest of the industry. Here's the quote from his LinkedIn post:

Well, yesterday we continued the good fight within Colorado's Marijuana Hospitality Industry as we met again with the MED to show the State Licensing Authority that there needs to be parity between hospitality and the rest of the industry and man, did the industry show up in force. Most of the time I really do feel like the industry doesn't always support JAD's or understand my dreams for hospitality, but I must say I have never felt as supported as I felt yesterday. I want to say thank you to everyone who showed up in support of increasing purchase limits to one ounce and those who commented publicly. The amount of support for parity within hospitality shows that this is the future of the industry. Again, thank you to everyone who supported us in this quest.

So, when multiple other companies were successfully hosting cannabis events, Jad's shouted for enforcement, but then just a few short months later, after they've attempted to destroy numerous entities, they want to expand the laws to increase consumption to work in favor of their business - which is still the only officially licensed establishment under House Bill 19-1230 where consumption of flower takes place as of this writing (there are 3 cannabis tourism businesses with the license as well). The constant bickering and then subsequent incessant meetings with the MED are poor optics at best, and the worst type of hypocrisy otherwise.

The Colorado cannabis community hasn't taken lightly to these revelations, as evidenced by some of the recent displays of public outrage. If you take a look at their business profile on Google, they've been flooded with negative reviews on a daily basis since the news broke. Every day, Jad's appears to be actively removing the reviews by leveraging Google support. There also appears to be fake reviews in support of Jad's since then (reviews appear fake when there's no context offered, and when the reviewer has only done 1 review).

Their Instagram account has been radio silent. Their last post, which was September 20th, 2023, advertised their events taking place in the month of October. There have been over 50 comments on that post since the leak, all disparaging of the establishment, or explicitly calling the company and its owners "snitches".

Tetra Lounge, a well-respected hub for cannabis consumption in downtown Denver, released retaliatory shirts on the morning of October 30th, 2023, after being named in multiple emails from Jad's to the MED. The shirts go on sale October 31st, and by the early community response, it will likely be a hot seller.

One last piece of evidence concerning the plight of the Colorado cannabis community against Jad's, came in the form of a magazine cover that was shared numerous times and garnered hundreds of reactions in support of the message. The message being,  why attack people that could help build you up in this industry, instead of tearing down the industry as a whole in the path of your own self destruction? Had Jad's pondered this sentiment before firing off those emails, perhaps we're having a much different conversation about Colorado's 'first legal pot bar'. Maybe if Jad's immersed itself in the community and lobbied for other establishments to be licensed, or discouraged the MED from disrupting existing events, or showed up to other events with good will/intentions while having safety in mind, perhaps the community reciprocation would have come back tenfold by now...but we'll never know, and now Jad's has lost a significant portion of local Colorado community support for the foreseeable future.