When Drugs Go Sober + OZY’s Top Ten

This OZY original series explores the booming business behind drug legalization that has nothing to do with getting high.

It started with marijuana, but the legalization of all sorts of drugs is taking off across the U.S., Europe and Latin America. The result is a boon for users who enjoy substances for their narcotic effects, and the now-legitimate businesses catering to them. But there’s much more to this story that doesn’t involve a high. These drugs often come from crops that have been cultivated for thousands of years and have all kinds of uses beyond getting blitzed. In this original series, OZY is diving into the sober implications for legal drugs.

Laura Lagano is breaking barriers as a dietitian by embracing the benefits of cannabis and CBD.

In 1996, when Laura Lagano was in her mid-30s, she gave birth to twins. One of them, Isabella, suffered from seizures and apraxia due to chromosomal duplication, a genetic ailment linked with autism spectrum disorder. A registered and certified dietitian/nutritionist (RDN) with a master’s from Columbia University, Lagano started searching for a holistic approach to alleviate her daughter’s difficulties.

“Isabella actually brought me to cannabis and CBD,” Lagano says. “I’m always looking for new approaches to help with her behaviors and CBD really made a big difference in her life.” She didn’t stop at home. While childhood seizure disorders have been the catalyst for the acceptance of legal cannabidiol (CBD) for years, Lagano, 60, is at the forefront of marketing it as a dietary supplement to combat all sorts of ailments — a booming business that has attracted critics along with the hype. The CBD market reached $591 million last year, according to analysis from the Brightfield Group, and could reach $22 billion by 2022.

Fabiola Piñacué has made coca into a consumer good, and she’s pioneering the way for its legal future.

When Fabiola Piñacué first sold coca-infused teas in the late 1990s, Colombia was in turmoil. The drug trafficking boom had empowered illegal armed groups, provoking a surge in violence. And as a countermeasure, the government, with the support of the United States, proposed an aerial fumigation program that promised to eliminate Colombia’s vast coca fields.

Piñacué, a political science student at the time, insisted that coca wasn’t the problem. Having grown up in an indigenous Nasa reservation, nestled in the sunny foothills of southwestern Colombia, Piñacué knew coca was not just the base ingredient in cocaine, but also a powerful plant respected for its spiritual and medicinal qualities.