Jason Ambrosino, CEO of Veterans Choice Creations – Interview Series

One of the most powerful voices in cannabis advocacy has emerged from the community of veterans across all branches of the United States Armed Forces. At every level of government, our nation’s veterans have demonstrated a deep passion for securing cannabis reform for their fellow service members. In New York, one veteran-founded brand is putting these causes at the forefront of its operations.

To explore the impact of cannabis in Upstate New York and its benefits for the veteran community, MyCannabis.com spoke with Jason Ambrosino, CEO of Veterans Choice Creations.

While obtaining your MBA at William & Mary, what were the most useful or otherwise fascinating courses you attended?

Strategy and operations. Understanding how systems scale, and where they break, has been essential in regulated manufacturing. I came into William & Mary with a strong background in supply chain management, and I think between supply chain management, strategy, and operations you pick up the tools to really be dangerous right out of the gate. William & Mary taught me to think in systems and to allow the data to drive my decision making. The most memorable course happened to be one that would seem to be boring – Lean Six Sigma. During that course we reviewed some incredibly talented and innovative cost cutting mechanisms and that is where I really learned that your profits live in your waste streams and if you mine your waste stream, you will be amazed at the value you find.

What inspired you to serve in the US Army and where were some notable places you visited/were deployed to? What ranks did you rise to and honors/medals were you awarded while serving in active duty?

I served because leadership and responsibility mattered to me. I chose to go to a private military college, Norwich University, not because I was jockeying for a scholarship, but because I was driven to it. I felt like there was a part of my life that needed to be explored there. I was offered a scholarship, full ride, at the end of my Freshman year and it was the first thing I did completely on my own as an adult, so I made the decision. I had no idea that a few months later we would experience at attach on the World Trade Center. I graduated college in 2004. I deployed to Iraq a year later, was injured by an IED, earned a Bronze Star, and medically retired as a disabled veteran. We could do an entire movie just on this right here.

How do you feel like serving in the Army strengthened your skills in teamwork and leadership which later became necessary in your professional life?

The Army teaches accountability under pressure, decision-making with incomplete information, and ownership of outcomes. These are skills that translate directly to business. But they only translate to business if you make that connection in your head. The Army didn’t just strengthen my skills in teamwork; it completely defined them. A part of me still feels like you are either born with the ability to lead or you are not. The Army certainly creates the atmosphere and conditions to develop leaders to their full potential and I certainly KNOW that my leadership traits were forged in fire. Before I could ever lead (29 months of company command) I had to learn how to follow and I learned how to follow for a lot years watching the good, the bad, and the ugly. Even with all that watching I still made mistakes.That might be the biggest leadership take away – we are not perfect, we make mistakes and we MUST forgive ourselves for those mistakes in order to keep being a good leader.

Prior to founding Veterans Choice Creations, what had your experiences with cannabis been? Have you ever tried it before creating VCC?

Yes. My experience with cannabis came after other forms of self-work during my transition out of the military. It became a functional tool within a broader wellness framework, not an identity. I consumed cannabis once in high school – I also consumed about a case of beer so the next morning I woke up with my shoes on, vulgar body parts drawn on my face, and a baked bean in my ear! Don’t fall asleep with your shoes on – ever. It was 100% the alcohol’s fault but for whatever reason, in my mind the weed made it way worse. That experience and the military kept me away from weed pretty much for the first 3rd of my life. I put a lot of guys out of the Army for consuming cannabis. I regret that and wish I understood the plant better during that time.

When I got out of the Army my life was shattered. The Army was all I knew, and I felt like a failure on top of the health and mental problems I was experiencing. I was certainly not in a good place. I read a book. Psychedelics found me. From there things changed very rapidly and I explored cannabis among other things I learned what lies were lies and what, at least according to my perception was true. Veterans Choice Creations was ultimately an extension of ten years of self-change and it was the natural “flower” of those efforts. The Universe had a direction, I followed the signs, and here we are.

How does VCC work in tandem with Veteran’s Hemp Market to best promote the possibilities of cannabis/hemp-based medicines?

Hemp allowed us to build trust, education, and operational muscle early. Cannabis allowed us to scale that mission under a regulated framework. Hemp is where I learned how to formulate, sharpen my ability to sell, and learn and study every last detail of this plant. Currently, we continue to operate Veterans Hemp Market at a loss, because there is no way for hemp to support itself fully without psychoactive cannabinoids. We are just now introducing Veterans Hemp Market to dispensaries, and we are finally at a point where we can circle back and give Veterans Hemp Market some love and attention. I think in the future we may spin Veteran’s Hemp Market off as a non-profit and educational arm of our operation.

I know personally just how wildly well CBN, CBG, CBD and all the minors can work to really change lives. We always struggled to make any money with Veterans Hemp because how do you turn someone away that is in pain either mentally or physically? The minor cannabinoids help with both. How do you turn them away when you know you have something that is going to nearly immediately change their life as long as they are taking a big enough dose? My morals and my ethics simply don’t allow me to turn that person away, so I would tell them to take it – worry about paying after you know it works for you. There were many folks we provided product to many times because they simply could not afford it. I want to continue to educate the public and I want to continue to provide product to the public that is high quality and cost effective in the higher doses needed to really understand its full potential.

From a production standpoint, how does a small batch approach better ensure that the harvested product is of a higher quality?

Smaller batches allow tighter control over inputs, processing variables, and faster correction when issues arise. The difficulty exists in the cost of the test. The smaller the batch the higher the per unit cost is for testing, which doesn’t seem like much but by the time the item hits a retail shelf, a small movement in cost at the processor level means big changes to pricing at the retail level. You can always get better results with small specialized batches but to produce commercially you need to balance that with what is financially feasible at scale. What we have found works is that we operate collectively as a larger operator but we have smaller parts that function as a craft artesian operation. Same thing with pre-rolls.

We have the mass produced pre-roll machines and they produce a fine quality , but we also have a section that is sitting there just hand rolling joints and or blunts and making very hands on very specialized units – but these units are really expensive. But we offer both. The mass produced, high-quality but lower cost products, and the high cost, high-quality craft products. I guess I would like to end this with a question. Can craft be financially feasible and accessible or is it more like a treat? I want to be able to produce craft level quality at pricing that the folks making the product could actually afford.

From your experience as a veteran and your experience working with other veterans, what are some remarkable ways in which you’ve noticed cannabis and hemp helping your fellow veterans?

Improved sleep, reduced reliance on pharmaceuticals, and better emotional regulation are the most common outcomes I’ve seen. Those are BIG – all of them. I have experienced these benefits personally. Earlier I mentioned that I had put guys out of the military for failing a drug test or getting caught with cannabis and that I really regret that because I did not understand what the cannabis was doing for them. Cannabis gave me a life back, it wasn’t the same life – it could never be the same life.

But, it helped me accept the fact that I could build a new life, something different and maybe even better I didn’t do that on my own, it helped me get there – without a doubt. How many suicides would we have prevented if we just took the power of cannabis a little bit more seriously – especially for Veterans ESPECIALLY FOR VETERANS.

What are some of the greatest successes and accomplishments that Veterans Holdings and its various businesses have celebrated?

Scaling from a bootstrapped hemp business into a multi-brand cannabis manufacturing platform, Inc. 5000 recognition (#125), and creating meaningful jobs in Gloversville, NY. All of these things are huge for us. We are in over 270 dispensaries! We scratch our heads every day trying to figure out how we got here. Our greatest accomplishment though is our workforce. They are our bread and butter, folks that came in knowing nothing about the cannabis industry and have learned everything along the way. We could not be where we are today without those folks . They trusted us to show them the way and we trusted they would be able to follow. They killed it and continue to kill it.

With federal cannabis rescheduling occurring in the near future, how do you envision the medical opportunities of cannabis becoming more thoroughly researched?

Rescheduling enables legitimate clinical research, standardized dosing, and broader physician participation. However, these changes aren’t necessarily all positive. I am fearful of a wave of patents and trademarks for every supposed “novel” use of cannabis, especially when the information they are attempting to patent is well known throughout the industry, especially within say butane operators or hash washers. Process is patentable, and I just hope that in the process of finally achieving the ability to truly study the plant that greed doesn’t lock everything up for the rest of us. I am worried the veterans of the cannabis inpustry will be squeezed out of the industry by the pharmaceutical industry, and that would be an absolute tragedy.

Looking forward into the future, how does Veterans Holdings continue to advocate for veterans and the possibilities of cannabis options for those who’ve served?

By creating opportunity, including jobs, education, and access, and by reinvesting locally. Rebuilding Gloversville is part of that advocacy. What do I mean by that? Well, there are lots of advocates for a lot of things. We look for locally operated but perhaps regional or statewide impact type operations that are providing for Veterans that are struggling with housing or perhaps food insecure, and we give accordingly. This is where we know it will have a DIRECT impact. We often have to do this quietly because some of these organizations worry about losing Federal grant money if they are associated with a cannabis company. We just give and avoid the publicity. I think the next big push has to be getting the VA to embrace cannabis and really I think that is the biggest winner out of change to Schedule 3. Once the VA can consider and talk about using cannabis as a treatment plan, they can evaluate patients properly and then prescribe the most effective product that provides the least amount of harm and that is almost always going to be cannabis.

Thank you for joining us, Jason! For more information on Veterans Choice Creations, please visit its website.