Evan Nison

I have been working to reform cannabis laws since 2008. I founded the United States’ first cannabis PR agency, NisonCo, in 2012. NisonCo grew out of my work as a field director for Compassion & Choices, a nonprofit organization, where I coordinated with PR and government relations firms. The Firm remains one of the country's most influential cannabis-specific PR agencies. The Observer listed NisonCo at the top of their Cannabis PR Power List in 2019, and Business Insider called the firm “the imminent PR agency in cannabis” in 2021. We introduced NisonCo SEO in 2018 and currently offer PR, SEO, content marketing, and website-building services. NisonCo’s areas of expertise have expanded, too; we serve companies in future-facing industries, including cannabis, psychedelics, crypto, and sustainability. Over the past decade, we have worked with celebrity brands, leading MSOs, NASDAQ and billion-dollar IPOs, national voter registration drives, and some of the country's most significant vaporizer and CBD brands. In college, I worked on the Prop 19 California Marijuana Legalization Campaign and was president of the Ithaca College branch of Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP). Shortly afterward, I helped found the New York Cannabis Alliance. I am still involved with SSDP; I have been a member of the organization’s Board of Directors since 2015. I remain a director of the New York Cannabis Alliance and am the youngest member of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws’ (NORML’s) Board of Directors. I have been lucky enough to be involved in some of the most critical moments in the cannabis reform movement throughout my career so far. I helped pass the New York Medical Marijuana and New York 911 Good Samaritan Laws and received one of the pens used to sign them into action. I was included in Marijuana Venture’s 40 under 40 and High Time’s 100 Most Influential People in Cannabis, and I have been featured in many major news outlets, including Good Morning America, the New York Times, CNN, Politico, USA Today, NBC New York, Bloomberg TV, Forbes, and has been profiled in The Cannabist, Civilized, Ithaca Times, Home News Tribune, The Marijuana Times, and the Sun-Times.