Editor's Note: Presented by Cannabis Business Times in an as-told-to format. COO Narith Panh shared below information directly with CBT. Edited for length and clarity
What catapulted [my career in cannabis] was a life-changing family event. My brother was involved in an auto-pedestrian hit-and-run accident in 2019. He had to get an aluminum rod in his leg [and] he had to have a C6 spinal fusion. He made a full recovery because, during that nine-month recovery process, the only [medicine] he used was medical cannabis. Being able to turn to cannabis—and it was just a 1:1 THC-CBD ration—that’s what saved my brother’s life, and that’s why he was able to make a full recovery.
We really want to create a different type of culture of what cannabis is. We’re talking about a healing plant here, we’re talking about medicine, we’re talking about a disruptor to health and wellness and what our current [health care] system is, which is garbage and broken and doesn’t work for us.
We talk a lot about reducing the stigma. It’s not your uncle’s weed. It’s not this stoner stereotype of these degenerates that use cannabis. It’s people like me, regular people who have regular jobs that have families and kids and just don’t want to be judged. My whole professional career, I felt like I had to lie about cannabis. Now I’m finally part of the industry where I get to be myself, act myself, and not feel like I’m getting judged for what I’m doing.
You don’t wait around for government and state officials to make changes; you go out there and do it. We use our platform for social equity, for social justice, for fighting for safer alternative access to health care.
I hate that there’s even a conversation around [medical versus recreational] because I don’t care who you are, if you’re using cannabis, you are using it medically.
Patient-first is our number one core value, and really the number one reason we are as successful as we are. We stand ready to serve our patients.
We’re here to serve the plant. That has to be first and foremost. If [employees] don’t have a passion and commitment for the plant, they’re not on our team. We don’t want just salespeople; we want people who want a [cannabis] lifestyle. This is our life. We live, eat, and breathe cannabis.
It really starts with education. It starts with educating our employees, because if they’re not educated, they’re not going to pass that on to our patients. So, that’s something we really focus on, continual education.
There’s this thing called ego that business leaders and operators get fed and they think, ‘You work for me. You’re lucky to have a job.’ It’s the other way around. We’re lucky to have a team that believes in us.
In five years, we are going to be the first medically focused, U.S.-based cannabis brand in Southeast Asia. So, not only do we want to be a national brand, we want to be an international brand and we want to be recognized for quality. And ultimately—it’s a pretty audacious goal—we want to be the alternative to [over-the-counter pain medicine]. The long-term strategy is to ultimately be one of those trusted brands out there that people know exactly what Dragonfly Wellness is.
