Laura Fogelman, Chief of Staff and VP of Marketing & Communications at PAX – Interview Series

Due to its association with cannabis, marketing consumption devices can be precarious, bringing challenges rarely seen in other sectors. When a globally famous vaporizer brand enters the cannabis industry to produce its own product lines, it is understandable that these business challenges and concerns increase significantly. However, even with the uncertainty of entering diverse American markets, navigating them successfully is entirely achievable—particularly for a brand like PAX, which leverages a strong international customer base.

For a deeper look into effective marketing strategies for such a prominent device and product manufacturer, mycannabis.com spoke with Laura Fogelman, Chief of Staff and VP of Marketing and Communications at PAX.

What subjects did you mainly study at UC Davis and how did those studies pay off?

I studied psychology and criminal justice. Psychology had always fascinated me—not just mental well-being, but the forces that shape how people think, behave, and make decisions. That foundation has proven remarkably relevant across my career, from advocacy to marketing, where understanding human motivation is at the heart of the work. I also worked in the research lab of Dr. Gail Goodman, a pioneer in the scientific study of children’s eyewitness memory and the experiences of child victims within the legal system.

Studying criminal justice shaped me in a different way. It opened my eyes to how laws and systems that appear neutral can be deeply inequitable in practice—disproportionately impacting certain communities, creating unintended consequences, and leaving some with the deck stacked against them from the start. That perspective feels especially important in cannabis, an industry that is inseparable from a long history of criminalization and injustice.

It’s something I carry into the work: How do we build something better? How do we create opportunity rather than reinforce the inequities that came before us? There are no quick fixes. It takes time, collaboration, awareness, and intentionality—from companies, consumers, and the industry as a whole. That’s one thing I love about this industry. While we obviously have commercial interests to advance, there are so many people here because they are passionate about the plant and care deeply about the movement, and all it represents.

How did your roles with McKesson provide you with a greater understanding of both public affairs, legislative efforts, and government inner workings?

McKesson was an incredible place to cut my teeth. A Fortune 10 global company that most have never heard of beyond seeing a box of latex gloves in the doctor’s office, it touches every single segment of the healthcare industry and has been at the forefront of health technology, research and automation. My time there reinforced something my education had already begun to teach me: meaningful change requires advocacy, and patience. Progress is rarely sweeping or immediate; more often, it happens incrementally, through sustained effort over time.

That experience also gave me a much clearer understanding of how policymaking actually works. Elected officials are responsible for hundreds of extraordinarily complex issues; they simply can’t be experts in all of them. That’s why informed advocacy matters. Policymakers need credible expertise, real-world context, and a clear understanding of the human impact behind an issue in order to make thoughtful decisions that serve the greater good. It also taught me the importance of staying power. If you believe in a vision for a better future, you have to be willing to keep making the case—even when progress is slow. Meaningful change takes persistence, partnership, and a willingness to stay in the fight for the long haul.

What type of national and state policies did you usually follow while working with McKesson? How did that legislation impact McKesson and its operations?

I was part of a small public affairs team doing critical work with executive support at the highest levels, which gave me a front-row seat to some of the most consequential moments in healthcare policymaking—from the passage of the Affordable Care Act and stimulus funding for health information technology through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, to the deployment of vaccine stockpiles to state governments during the H1N1 pandemic.

Given the breadth of McKesson’s business, we had a point of view on nearly every major healthcare policy issue, from the local to the international level. We also saw disasters strike and governments scramble, challenging us to find creative solutions to get life-saving medications and resources to the communities that needed them. It taught me how much effective leadership depends on being able to absorb complexity quickly, bring the right people together, and turn urgency into action.

What types of clients did you work with while serving with Grow Marketing? What industries were they primarily in and how did working with such a diverse group of clients increase your expertise even further?

I joined Grow Marketing initially to launch a startup called Theranos, but what I found there became one of the most formative experiences of my career. Grow is an extraordinary, women-owned agency with leaders I deeply admire, and I learned an enormous amount from them about creativity, leadership, and bringing ambitious ideas to life. Working across industries, from tech and finance to fashion, CPG, energy, and more, taught me to immerse myself in a business quickly, anticipate what’s coming, and deliver great work no matter how much is changing around you. I genuinely believe every marketer should spend time on the agency side; it builds a resourcefulness, adaptability, and results-orientation that stays with you.

But the people were the best part. Agency life can be intense, and there’s a particular bond forged in the trenches of client service—long days, impossible deadlines, constant pivots, and figuring it out together. Some of my closest friendships came from Grow, and I left a better marketer and leader because of the people I worked alongside.

While at Grow Marketing, how did you have to tailor your duties and expertise based on the industry that a particular client was operating in? What were the biggest differences in approach and strategy you had to make?

Working agency-side fundamentally shaped how I approach work: start with the right insights, deeply understand the audience, and build strategies that actually change behavior and deliver results. When you’re working with world-class global brands, the bar is incredibly high. Great ideas aren’t enough; the work has to truly perform.

But the most important lesson was also the simplest: no matter the industry, brand, or campaign, you’re still talking to people. People don’t want to be sold to. They want to feel understood and invited into a world where they can see themselves. The more deeply you understand what people care about, the challenges they face, and what they aspire to, the more powerfully you can connect with them—and ultimately move them to act.

What caught your professional interest about working with Pax? In the cannabis space in particular, what did you feel like Pax was doing differently when compared to their competitors?

I first started working in cannabis on the agency side, building a cannabis portfolio within our existing business. I quickly became captivated by the opportunity to help shape an entirely new industry—one with the potential to be transformational for so many people, and where the choices we made at that early stage could genuinely influence what it became.

A few years later, my decision to join PAX was deeply mission-driven. I saw a company that was all-in on normalizing cannabis and building the industry the right way, with real commitments to impact and community. PAX has always stood for premium quality and consistency, but also for making cannabis better: creating harm-reduction alternatives grounded in science, while elevating the experience through technology, flavor, and design. It was a dream job then, and it still is today, even after experiencing firsthand just how challenging building this industry can be.

What are your regular and lesser-known duties as VP of Communications for Pax? For a brand that makes consumption devices and has its own cannabis product lines as well, how multi-faceted is your role, and how do you support successful operations on both sides of the business?

To say my role is multifaceted is almost an understatement—but that’s also what makes it so special. I serve as both VP of Communications and Chief of Staff, and I often joke that the latter really means Chief of “whatever-the-company-needs-most-that-day.” Today, I oversee marketing, communications, policy, and people and culture, while working closely with our CEO and leadership team on broader company strategy and operations. A significant part of my role is connecting the dots across the organization—making sure our priorities, teams, and operating rhythms are aligned with where we’re trying to go.

And because PAX operates across both devices and cannabis products, there’s an added layer of complexity, including different consumers, channels, regulations, and market dynamics, all under one brand. I’m very hands-on by nature, so I tend to live at the intersection of strategy and execution. No two days look quite the same, which keeps me engaged, challenged—and definitely busy.

What are some notable ways you’ve helped expand Pax and strengthen its corporate reputation at the same time? How did you ensure those strategies’ success?

For me, the best way to strengthen corporate reputation is to earn it. At PAX, that means leading with integrity and investing in work we believe will genuinely move cannabis—and the industry—forward.

Science and impact are two important examples. We’ve funded research challenging long-held assumptions about cannabis and, most recently, demonstrated that PAX vaporization can reduce exposure to harmful compounds by up to 99% compared with smoking a preroll. Through projects like The Human Toll, a short docuseries produced with the Last Prisoner Project and Vanity Fair, we’ve used our platform to educate and advocate for reform around the inequities created by the War on Drugs. And through a first-of-its-kind cannabis partnership with rePurpose Global, we achieved Plastic Negative certification across our product lines—removing twice as much plastic from nature as we use.

Ultimately, reputation isn’t something you manufacture through communications; it’s something you build through your actions. My job is to help ensure those actions are meaningful, authentic, and broadly understood.

What inspired you and Pax to create Peace By Pax? What does the platform stand for, and how does it plan on advocating for cannabis reform as well as further criminal justice and social reform measures?

PEACE BY PAX came from a belief that if you’re fortunate enough to help shape an emerging industry, you also have a responsibility to help shape it for the better. Cannabis carries an extraordinary history of injustice, and we wanted to make sure impact wasn’t peripheral to our business, but part of what we stood for.

We initially created Peace by PAX as a dedicated home for our work across criminal justice reform, equitable opportunity, safe access and compassion, and sustainability. Interestingly, going forward you’ll see less of it as a standalone platform—and that’s a sign of its evolution. Those principles are now integrated directly into the PAX masterbrand because they’re core to who we are, not a separate corporate responsibility initiative.

The goal remains the same: use our platform and influence to help build a cannabis industry that is more equitable, responsible, and sustainable than the one we inherited.

What are some notable upcoming plans for Pax? With so much happening at the federal level, how does Pax plan to follow and expand alongside any major federal reforms that may take place?

We have so much fun stuff coming up this fall, from new products to new colorways to events and collaborations. But more broadly, we fundamentally believe cannabis deserves better—better products, better experiences, and more thoughtful innovation around how people consume it. That’s where we remain laser-focused: deeply understanding what consumers want and using science, technology, and design to create products that deliver on the joy and ritual of cannabis while continually raising the bar for quality, consistency, and harm reduction. We have a pipeline of products in development that move us into new categories or push boundaries within the categories we’re already in, which we’re so excited about.

In terms of federal reform, there’s so much in flux right now, with significant uncertainty around where it will ultimately land. Like many others, we’re actively looking at the range of scenarios and planning against each of them so we’re positioned to respond quickly and thoughtfully as the landscape evolves. Our technology business and consumables portfolio give us multiple paths for growth, regardless of the outcome.

At the same time, reform remains incredibly urgent. Cannabis businesses still face enormous burdens around banking, taxation, and regulation, while people continue to live with the consequences of criminalization for conduct that is now legal—and profitable—in much of the country. We’ll keep advocating for a future where responsible cannabis businesses can thrive, past harms are addressed, and consumers have access to safer, higher-quality products worthy of the plant itself.

Thank you for joining us, Laura! For more information on PAX, please visit its website.