Lindsay Barker

Editor’s Note: Read the Spanish version of this article here. The cannabis industry has created a new market for architects and designers. The opportunity to design dispensaries, cultivation facilities and even cannabis laboratories is a new and scarcely explored frontier. After helping a past client with a residential project involving cannabis, MerJ Architecture co-founder Nicole Delmage was intrigued.

Verde Natural is a Colorado-based cultivation company with roots in Humboldt County, California, that produces award-winning cannabis and grows it in a very unique way:with living soil. What exactly is living soil, and why does it cultivate some of the best cannabis on the market? Cannabis grown in living soil mimics the natural environment the plant originated from.

Gov. Jared Polis made social equity in the cannabis industry a top priority this year through the creation of a cannabis “Wildly Important Goal.” This Wildly Important Goal is to “promote equity, diversity and inclusion in the marijuana industry.” A statewide cannabis cabinet meets monthly to discuss this goal and how to continue working toward achieving it, according to Marijuana Enforcement Division communication specialist Shannon Gray.