Noelle Livas

The 2018 midterm elections made a powerful impact on the cannabis industry, bringing the number of states with legal recreational marijuana to 10 , and medical cannabis to 33. However, following the trend of West Coast states like Oregon and Colorado, Maine became one of the first states in the Northeast to embrace recreational use back in 2016. And today, many Mainers are preparing to open their doors to the public, including Noelle Livas of Meowy Jane. Livas is the co-owner of one of Maine’s top grow facilities and provides cannabis caregiving to a wide variety of patients. We had the opportunity to learn more about her business and how she provides care to the medical marijuana community of Maine.

WHEN DID YOU FIRST DEVELOP AN INTEREST IN STARTING A CANNA-BUSINESS AND HOW DID YOUR COMPANY COME TO BE? My husband, Joe and I started the business about seven years ago. I was a nanny finishing up my degree in psychology and he was a CPA running his own business. As you can imagine, accounting was insanely boring and I had no plans for a career after school ended. We began researching the local laws regarding caregiving in our state and found the idea extremely interesting. This line of work would allow Joe to indulge his nerdier, scientific side and allow me some time to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. I initially didn’t know much about the industry, as it was so new and taboo at the time. I was honestly very nervous at first, so I eased in slowly. Over the course of a few months, I ended up falling in love with gardening. About a year in, I was working full-time with Joe and had officially made our business name Meowy Jane, because who isn’t obsessed with cats and puns? We have upgraded our facility four times now, changing locations and dealing with build-outs. It’s been a hell of a journey, but we are extremely happy with where we are now.