Innovation Interrupted: Prohibition’s Impact on Cannabis Consumer Tech and the Reemergence of the Empirical Entrepreneur 

Attorney, Executive and Medical Marijuana Advocate

Shanel Lindsay is an attorney, executive, and medical marijuana advocate from Boston, Massachusetts. As Founder and President of Ardent Cannabis, Shanel has developed new treatment methodologies and products that increase patient control, access, and efficiency, and hopes that these advances will also have a positive impact on eroding the stigma and discrimination associated with cannabis use.

Shanel attended the University of Pennsylvania (B.S. Anthropology) and Northeastern University School of Law (J.D.). She began her legal career as a judicial law clerk for the Massachusetts Superior Court before joining the civil litigation firm of Sugarman, Rogers, Barshak & Cohen, where she defended clients in business, employment, and environmental cases.  Shanel then became the Assistant Executive Director and Director of Human Resources of the Massachusetts State Lottery Commission, where she was responsible for advising the commission on employment law matters, reforming the agency’s hiring policies, and improving employee performance.  In 2012, when Massachusetts passed its medical marijuana initiative, Shanel combined her professional skills with her passion for cannabis in order bring new and novel technologies to patients on the east coast and beyond.

With over 10 years of expertise with cannabis extracts and edibles, Shanel is certain that with increased education and understanding of the medicinal benefits of cannabis, patients and doctors—even those who have not previously considered cannabis as an option—will discover it is a legitimate, viable, and safe treatment.