Michelle Aldrich founded the California Cannabis Historical Society, co-founded the San Antonio Free Clinic and the National Free Clinic Council. She was vice-president for drug education at Amorphia, a US Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse researcher and cited in the Le Dain Commission Report. She was vice-president of the SF chapter of the ACLU. She served on the Drug Abuse Advisory Board for the City and County of San Francisco, was a member of the San Francisco Medical Cannabis Task Force and the San Francisco Legalization Task Force. She was a member of the Board of the Fitz Hugh Ludlow Memorial Library and co-founder of the Aldrich Archives. She was on the board California NORML and a member Board of Advisors for Patients Out of Time. She is co-author of Prop 215 which legalized medical cannabis in California. The Apothecarium dispensary dedicated the dispensary to Michelle and Mike Aldrich.

Michael R. Aldrich, PhD, founded the first college chapter of Lemar (Legalize Marijuana) and authored the first doctoral dissertation on cannabis in the US, “Marijuana Myths and Folklore,” SUNY Buffalo, 1970; editor of The Marijuana Review, 1968-1973; co-founder, Amorphia, The Cannabis Cooperative, 1969-1973; organizer, California Marijuana Initiative, 1972; curator, Fitz Hugh Ludlow Memorial Library, 1974-2002 and the Aldrich Archives, 1974-present; program coordinator, Institute for Community Health Outreach (AIDS training program); executive director, CHAMP dispensary, 2001-2002; co-founder, San Francisco Patient and Resource Center (SPARC). Mike served on the Board of California NORML, and on the Board of Directors of Patients Out of Time. Mike and Michelle contributed “Popular Music and Drug Lyrics” to the 1973 report of the US Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse. The Marina Apothecarium dispensary in San Francisco is dedicated to Mike and Michelle in honor of their 50 years in the legalization movement.

Chris Conrad has played a pivotal role in cannabis history since the 1980s, including hemp industries, marijuana legalization, medical, personal, commercial and religious use. With his wife, Mikki Norris, he reframed the issue as author, publisher, strategist, organizer, educator, speaker, museum curator, and consultant. He founded Business Alliance for Commerce in Hemp, Family Council on Drug Awareness and other groups. He co-founded the Hemp Industries Association and Human Rights and the Drug War, designed and edited Herer’s The Emperor Wears No Clothes and shaped California case law as an expert witness in cannabis use, cultivation, processing, etc. He helped pass Prop. 215 (medical use, 1996), Senate Bill 420 (medical sales, 2003) and Prop. 64 (adult legalization, 2016). His books include Hemp: Lifeline to the Future, Hemp for Health, Shattered Lives: Portraits From America’s Drug War and The Newbie’s Guide to Cannabis and the Industry. Conrad, professor emeritus at Oaksterdam University, publishes ChrisConrad.com and theLeafOnline.com.

Dale Gieringer, PhD has been the director of California NORML (National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws) since 1987. He was one of the original co-authors of California’s medical marijuana law, Prop 215, and of Oakland’s pioneering “Legalize, Tax and Regulate” Measure Z ordinance of 2004. He has published original research on the medical uses of cannabis, THC and CBD potency testing; the economics of legal cannabis, cannabis vaporization for smoke harm reduction; marijuana and driving safety; and the history of marijuana and drug prohibition. He is the author of “The Forgotten Origins of Cannabis Prohibition in California.”

Richard Jergenson is a product of Berkeley and the 1960’s counter culture, as well as a co-founder of the Protopipe business, over 50 years ago. He is a natural archivist, as a young historian from the 1960’s he began saving and storing the amazing posters, books and cultural icons of the times, which continues to be a life-long passion. The Counter Culture Museum and Archive is now a treasure trove of the counter cultural era of the 1960's, 70's and 80's. CCMA has exhibited at several Emerald Cups, built the Emerald City Popup Museum in 2020, and curated the “Cannabis in Mendocino County: our Story” exhibit with panel discussions in 2023. (Mendocino County Museum) They joined the Counter culture History Coalition in 2023. He continues to add to this Counter Culture & Cannabis Archive. It includes the 80 year prohibition history as well as artifacts from the Back to the Land movement here in Northern California - the Emerald Triangle and beyond.

Mikki Norris has been a cannabis reform activist since 1989, Mikki Norris is best known for her book, Shattered Lives: Portraits from America’s Drug War based on the powerful photo exhibit, Human Rights and the Drug War, which put a human face on the prisoners and victims of US drug policies. Mikki and her husband, Chris Conrad, have been spokespeople and educators for the cause in the US and internationally. They lived in Amsterdam in 1993 while curating and designing the Hash, Marihuana, and Hemp Museum. She was managing editor of the West Coast Leaf newspaper (2008-2013). Mikki and Chris were grassroots petition drive coordinators for California’s Prop. 215, the medical marijuana law passed in 1996. She led the Cannabis Consumers Campaign, advocating for the end of stigma and for equal rights. She worked on various voter initiatives including the legalization measures, 2010 Prop. 19 and the 2016 Prop. 64.

Michael Polson, PhD, is an anthropologist at UC Berkeley's Department of Environmental Science, Policy & Management, where he directs the Cannabis Research Center (CRC). He has been conducting ethnographic research in cannabis-cultivating communities since 2010 and has published widely on matters relating to cannabis and land use, real estate, environmental regulation, compliance and licensure, local cultivation policies, activism and social change, enforcement, and the manifold legacies of prohibition. He has been funded by NSF, NIH, and numerous private foundations. With funding from California's Department of Cannabis Control, he completed two team projects on unlicensed production and cultivation bans. He is now Principal Investigator on two interdisciplinary projects on (a) geographic shifts in California cannabis cultivation and (b) investors, operators, and the state of market competition. He works on a third project on cannabis' role in Hmong agrarian diasporas. Dr. Polson is a commissioner on California's Cannabis Advisory Committee.