40 Under 40: Sarah Woodson

Sarah Woodson founded The Color of Cannabis at the end of 2019 with a mission to provide access for minority cannabis ownership through education, lobbying services and restorative justice initiatives. Her work has spearheaded the social equity policy instated under the adult-use legalization in her home state of Colorado. 

More than 100 people came through a ten-week technical assistance source that The Color of Cannabis ran in 2023 under contract with the city of Denver. The course includes workshops in starting a business, registering and running interference with the bureaucracy, as well as technical aspects of horticulture and manufacturing. The outfit now has a similar contract with Washington State.  

Woodson credits the Denver course with helping to get 20 business up and running—17 of which are fully licensed, with both state and local authorities. Most are cannabis delivery businesses, or “third-party transporters;” five are manufacturers and two are “mobile hospitality” enterprises, making use of Colorado’s policy of permitted smoking lounges.  

The Color of Cannabis also provides space at an already built-out location for manufacturers to use, under a special arrangement negotiated with the state Marijuana Enforcement Division, which oversees Colorado’s cannabis industry. This allows start-ups to avoid prohibitive rent costs. Among local companies benefiting from this arrangement are infused cookie creators La Dulce, infused coffee purveyor C’est La Vie and infused beverage entrepreneurs Strain 16. Another is Monstera Melts, which produces solventless rosin made through water pressing. 

Woodson herself is a partner in Denver’s first mobile hospitality lounge, The Cannabis Experience—“a party bus for cannabis smokers,” which became fully licensed in March 2023. It operates on a bring-your-own-cannabis model, with alcohol prohibited.  

This evolved from her earlier business, Kush & Canvases, a hospitality space in nearby Aurora, CO, which featured art classes and a cannabis consumption space. It transitioned to The Cannabis Experience when Denver allowed hospitality spaces. Woodson saw the mobile model as more readily open, as it requires no public hearing (as opposed to brick-and-mortar hospitality spaces).  

Before getting into the cannabis field, Woodson ran a Pro-Se Bankruptcy business, putting her two paralegal certificates to use. She also has a BA in sociology with a minor in legal studies from CU Denver. 

Woodson aspires to run for public office—probably starting with a bid for a seat on the city council in her home of Aurora in the not-too-distant future. She’s a graduate of the Emerge program, a Democratic Party “boot camp” for women planning to run for office. 

Woodson’s mom is from Liberia, where a family connection recently prompted her first philanthropic project—raising funds for a well in her grandfather’s village. 

“I’ve seen how it is when you have access to resources and when you don’t; I didn’t grow up rich, I pulled myself up by my own bootstraps,” she says. “So, it’s really important to me to help minorities gain economic and financial freedom, and right now cannabis is the place I’m residing in,” Woodson says. “I  have a knack for policy, the ability to make the average person’s life a little better and equal the playing field in a capitalist society. Policy really does affect how people live from day to day, especially at a local level. It’s really important for social equity owners to understand how political cannabis is, and how to advocate for themselves.”