Higher Profile: Jane Fix, Director of Patient Services at Sol Flower Dispensaries

Jane Fix was credited as a champion of Arizona’s medicinal cannabis industry before the state established a medical program. That year, she was named one of the 30 Most Powerful Women in Cannabis by AZBigMedia, the umbrella organization for countless mainstream publications in the state.

Helping others educate themselves about the plant as a medicine has been her calling for more than 50 years. The journey began in the spring of 1969, just a few months before the summer of love, when the grandmother of a friend introduced her to the work when she was 16.

“We named her Grandma Petey,” Fix shared. “She was probably in her 80s and she was very matter-of-fact about using cannabis for her arthritis pain. She lived in a small house in the ravine above Encinitas Beach. She had a pile of cannabis in a frisbie sitting on a table in her eat-in kitchen. She grew it herself in the backyard and taught me that it’s the only thing that helps with the pain. Something I’ve heard over and over again from older patients over the years.”

Grandma Petey was the first to show Fix that “marijuana” really is medicine, and she was also the first person to teach her and her friends how to grow it.

“I remember her son traveling back and forth from Mexico, with Grandma Petey being one of the first to grow sinsemilla that we knew about,” she added.

Sinsemilla is known to be from southern Mexico, so it makes sense that Grandma Petey’s son used to visit her frequently. The strain is believed to have been developed in the early 1950s and was first brought to the States in the early 1960s, with folklore that includes singer/songwriter David Crosby (High Times Archives, 1999).

It’s poignant that Fix’s first weed sample came from a plant grown for high tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) levels, tested at possibly over 15%, at a time when average strains were around 3% of the then mildly psychoactive compound weighed.

Merriam-Webster describes sinsemilla as “…highly potent marijuana from female plants that are specially tended and kept seedless by preventing pollination to induce high resin levels,” with the Spanish translation literally meaning “seedless.”

As a footnote, the late Southern Humboldt cannabis farmer and breeder Lawrence Ringo, in growing what we now know as high cannabidiol (CBD) hemp, said his intention was to hybridize the THC in the plant back to what he called ” God” called plant” with THC tests below 4%. As a bonus, after almost 15 years of working on his pet project, the CBD has tested more than 14%, giving us the more medicinal herb we have today.

awe & wonder

Fix was raised in Southern California at Rancho Santa Fe near the historic Del Mar Fairgrounds, home to the equally historic horse track. She grew up in a house her father designed not far from the sea.

She said cannabis inspired “wonder and awe” and opened her eyes to the natural world around her.

“I would smoke a grease pipe and drive 20 miles to the beach just to sit and enjoy the outdoors,” she said. “Cannabis also opened my third eye and made me stand up for what I believed in at the time. At the height of the Vietnam War, my friends and I lay down on the railroad tracks that ran along the ocean to Camp Pendleton to protest the tanks heading to the Navy Yard in San Diego.”

When a newspaper reporter once asked her to compare alcohol to cannabis, she balked.

“The best I can tell you is that some people treat it like a glass of wine at the end of the day,” she shared. “But comparing the plant to alcohol only reinforces the negative stoner image. Dennis Peron got in all sorts of trouble because he said it was always medicine, but we know it is.”

That’s not to say that Fix doesn’t also enjoy enjoying a good smoke to unwind after a busy day.

“My bottom line is that I love weed,” she laughed. “Yes, I’m educated on its effectiveness, but ultimately I’m no different than others who use the plant to chill. The fact that I get a good night’s sleep as a bonus makes it medicine.”

Courtesy of Full Spectrum Creative

way to the plant

Fix also credits Grandma Petey with influencing her to study botany during college in California, with her mother encouraging her to work in a nursery.

“I was fascinated by the billions of healing plants,” she said. “Everything I’ve done and learned has led me to where I am now, helping people with a plant.”

Her education was cut short three-fourths before graduating from college when her father died and she took over the independent telephone book publisher he owned until the company was bought by competitors.

After growing up around horses, Fix said she went to Colorado and worked in the Rocky Mountains at Sombrero Stables in Estes Park for eight years until an injury ended that gig.

Back in Arizona, Fix returned to college and earned a teaching degree in education from Arizona State University. After five years as a fourth grade teacher, she said she didn’t feel valued in the Arizona school system.

She considered moving to Montana, where she knew the school system was better, but as fate would have it, she decided to attend a four-day training course at Oaksterdam University – one of the nation’s premier cannabis educational institutions in Oakland, California.

legal profession in their home country

When Arizona voters passed the Medical Marijuana Act, Proposition 203, in 2010, then-Governor Jan Brewer suspended pharmacy licenses and allowed patients to use medical cards without secure access points. The suspension also left these running collectives in limbo and under constant threat.

“I ran a caregiver collective,” she said. “It was not uncommon for the first two customers of the day to be Phoenix police officers to ask how the operation went. We were always on the verge of being arrested and shut down while we were busy helping patients with real illnesses, I might add.”

The collective mentoring model began in San Francisco, California and was formally incorporated as The San Francisco Cannabis Buyers Club in 1994; founded by the aforementioned Dennis Peron (known as the father of medical marijuana) and his partner John Entwistle.

The club was formed in 1994, two years before California voters approved Proposition 215 in 1996, making the state the first state in the nation to officially recognize the plant as a medicine. This is significant because, like most established medical cannabis programs, the maintenance was already happening, waiting for lawmakers to catch up.

During that time, Fix said she was interviewed by a local television station in the caregiver community where she worked. Then Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery, now an Arizona Superior Court Judge, was in the studio, and when shown her interview, the reporter asked him if Fix was in danger of being arrested, to which Montgomery replied, ” I would arrest Jane Fix”, with the thought if she continues to operate.

“Montgomery campaigned against the cannabis legalization vote and has been in opposition since he was district attorney,” she said. “When we got on the air, he wanted to arrest me right on set in the middle of the interview.”

By December 2012, Arizona allowed the first licensed dispensary to open in the city of Glendale, providing safe access to patients and validating the work Fix and others had done.

Fix eventually became Director of Facility Operations for the collective she had worked for. However, after recognizing the need for a comprehensive patient service program for the cannabis industry as a whole, the position of Director of Patient Services was created for her.

Courtesy of Full Spectrum Creative

No quick fix

Her training in botany, combined with her degree and education experience, was a perfect fit to advance the burgeoning cannabis industry in her home state. For the next four years she worked as the Patient Services Manager for the Monarch Dispensary in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Women Grow, a national organization of professional women in the cannabis industry, named Fix one of the ten most influential women in Arizona Cannabis in 2015; and by 2017 she was appointed Director of Patient Services at Sol Flower Dispensaries, owned by Copperstate Farms. a position she still holds today, overseeing patient care for five pharmacies, with more openings planned.

Fix said she’s seen help for many diseases and disorders over the years, but she’s also seen help for a wider range of ailments as cannabis has become more common and understood as medicine.

“Five years ago, 30% of our patients came for help for cancer,” she said. “Today we are treating more patients with neurodegenerative diseases such as multiple sclerosis, ALS and Alzheimer’s. Oncologists used to come on board for referrals, now neurologists are referring patients for cannabis use. Unfortunately, it is used as a last resort when traditional treatments have been exhausted due to stigma.”

Fix added that she had no reason to lie or exaggerate about the plant’s effectiveness, and if the patient wanted to wait for the science, that was their prerogative.

“Ten out of ten people with Parkinson’s experience relief once they find their dose, and that’s phenomenal,” she added.

As with any cannabis use for symptom control or serious illness, dosage is key, she said.

“It all depends on the disease and the patient’s condition,” she advised. “Take Parkinson’s, ideally tincture is a good birth. We always prefer sublingual to see where their sweet spot is, starting with a five milligram dose and going up to 10, 15, or 20. Generally, people microdose on the lower side, working up as needed high.”

Information can be found on Sol Flower’s blog on its website, with ongoing workshops and invited guest speakers to give talks on every aspect of the plant as a remedy. His monthly calendar is packed with classes on yoga, meditation, tapping, sound therapies, and an ongoing 101 on adult cannabis use. Opened in 2019, Sun City’s pharmacy houses a café and classroom with the aim of becoming a community center and educational venue of sorts – hoping to break the mold of how people think of a pharmacy.

Regarding the effectiveness of the remedies, Fix said the plant is becoming more accepted as it helps patients, with eight out of 10 seniors never looking back and being able to give up addictive and often harmful medicines.

“Since the first hit Grandma Petey gave me, I’ve never understood why cannabis isn’t legal,” she concluded. “The positive effects it had on my physical and mental well-being alone were evident and I have been using it almost daily ever since. Now, after all these years of helping others, I can honestly say I still don’t understand why it isn’t available everywhere for everyone.”

For more information on Sol Flower, please visit https://www.livewithsol.com/