MEDICINE
MAN
Award-winning Eugene grower Adam Jacques leads the way for medical cannabis
BY RICK LEVIN
I
t’s been a heavy week for Adam Jacques. As
he tours around the 40-plus-acre farm in west
Eugene where he cultivates some of the most
highly regarded medical cannabis in the world,
Jacques, always outgoing, nonetheless seems
weighted by sadness — not exactly downbeat but weary,
like a man recently smacked by the cosmos.
Atop the 100-hour week Jacques and his team routinely
put in breeding medical cannabis for patients, he’s also
been filling out the reams of bureaucratic and legal
paperwork required to go recreational, a move he’s making
largely to fund the healing side of his profession. It’s this
professional work — the breeding of strains with record-
breaking percentages of cannabidiol or CBD, one of the
major medicinal elements in pot that, unlike THC, does not
get you high — that led Canna Magazine to give Jacques
the Most Influential Grower in the Northwest award at its
Seattle conference this past August.
But there’s business, and then there’s the business of
healing, with its hard-won triumphs and inevitable losses.
On the morning of Jan. 3 came news of the passing of
Frank Leeds, a cancer patient with whom Jacques had been
working closely for the past five years. It was his work
with Leeds — and in particular the breeding of “Frank’s
Gift,” a high-CBD strain of cannabis — that opened up for
Jacques the possibility of turning his green gifts toward the
services of healing.
Although deeply saddened by Leeds’ death, Jacques
says he celebrates the man’s life and what that might mean
for other cannabis patients down the line. “It opened up so
many doors for us to be allowed to help so many that were
needing the effects of medical cannabis without the feeling
of being stoned,” Jacques says of treating Leeds. “While
I was constantly consistently growing high-quality THC
cannabis, the ability to help so many more people became
available. It was a huge turning point in who I was as a
person and grower. I cried and celebrated that day.”
Since this breakthrough, Jacques has been propelled
to the forefront of the medical cannabis movement. And
he isn’t just pulling down awards. Just this year he turned
his efforts to helping Leni, a young girl immobilized by
severe seizures, and he remains an outspoken proponent of
protecting the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program from
legislative assault and the encroachment of pharmaceutical
corporations looking to cash in.
BEFORE
THE END OF
THE FIRST
WEEK OF
T R E A T M E N T,
LENI WAS
WATCHING
DISNEY’S
FROZEN AND
SINGING
ALONG, HER
MOTHER
AMY YOUNG
SAYS,
‘WHEREAS
BEFORE SHE
COULDN’T
FOCUS ON
T H E M O V I E .’
SHE BEGAN
HOLDING
HER HEAD
U P. S H E
STARTED
USING HER
HANDS.
LENI’S STORY
Listening to Jacques, it’s difficult to see his
transformation from a darn good Eugene weed grower to
an industry-leading medical cannabis provider as anything
less that life-altering. “We’re all people and we all have
our lives and our life stories,” Jacques says. “I can’t say
I’m proud of who I’ve been. I was not the person I wanted
to be. Helping people, that’s what I’ve needed all along.
That’s what gets me out of bed in the morning.”
LENI
PHOTO COURTESY DEBRA MAE
eugeneweekly.com • January 14, 2016
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