We had the good fortune of connecting with JP Donahue and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi JP, we’d love to hear about how you approach risk and risk-taking
I think about risk differently. Most think about the risk of failure if they try something new or different. Thinking about risk this way limits what is possible. I think about the risk of being unhappy. The risk of not living my life the way that I would like to. The risk of being trapped doing something that you’re not passionate about. The risk of life passing you by.

What do any of us have to lose, anyway? Nothing is promised. Not even your next breath.

Everyone dies at the end of their story. Birth is death. So get busy living the life you want to live.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I call myself an artist because creating is at the center of everything I’ve ever done. Nothing has been easy. Everything has been earned.

I’ve had it all and lost it all more than once in this life. I’ve traveled the world surfing and I’ve had to sell my favorite board to buy groceries. It has been a wild ride. Here’s a short bio:

A few years ago I was the founding partner of Tropicanna Dispensary and Weed Delivery, one of Orange County’s most successful cannabis retail brands.

But that’s not all I’ve done, and my diversity of experience plays a major role in shaping my perspective.

I grew up in a farm town in rural Michigan but left the corn fields for New York City where I picked up my law degree at St. John’s University School of Law. After a couple of years in corporate litigation, I moved to California to pursue my passion for writing. I have authored over 25 original, for-hire, and uncredited rewrites for film and TV at companies like Warner Bros, Dreamworks, CBS, and NBC ( to name a few).

During the Writer’s Strike of 2008, I answered another calling and became a cannabis cultivator, greenhouse designer/fabricator. I bought 5 acres in the middle of the Mojave desert and was retrofitting scrap doublewide trailers into mobile automated grow pods. When the bottom fell out of cultivation, that lead me to become a founding partner of Tropicanna Dispensary and Weed Delivery (one of Orange County’s most successful cannabis retail brands.)

Tropicanna was a pure bootstrap startup and the best part about being a founding partner was that I got to wear all the hats:

Drafted the winning merit-based license application | Negotiated/drafted all contracts | Set up compliant banking and payment processing | Launched delivery | Created the brand/logo | Wrote all brand copy/marketing materials | Designed the company website | Designed company merch | Managed social/digital marketing | Built and managed the marketing team | Developed house brands | Managed purchasing and brand partnerships | Shared day to day management responsibilities.

It was a great run. And then I got very sick. Turns out, I had a genetic defect in my heart that almost killed me. I had a bicuspid aortic valve and it had to be replaced. So, I had emergency open heart heart surgery in 2021 and two more procedures in 2022. TBH, it wrecked me in every way. Physically, psychologically, and spiritually.

It took over two years to emerge from the abyss, but I’m finally healthy again. But changed.

When you hold hands with death that long, it changes you. I left my Tropicanna. It had become a toxic environment. I went Costa Rica for a year. I drank ayahuasca, I confronted my shadow self, I completed yoga teacher training, I meditated, I healed. I evolved. Then came back to LA.

Today, I leverage my law degree and decades of experience in both Hollywood and Cannabis to advise dispensaries on effective branding, marketing, and operations. I also author high-quality original cannabis content based on my real-world experience as a legacy and licensed operator.

What else? Hmmm. I’m a Jiu Jitsu Black Belt and 4x Pan American Champion, a psilocybin and cannabis advocate/microdoser, certified Yogi, meditator, dog father, and a member of the New York State Bar and Writers Guild of America West.

I’m also writing another screenplay for the first time in a decade. It’s called “Rebel Legacy. Think Sons of Anarchy meets Yellowstone in the wild west of California Cannabis.

It feels good to be writing again and I’m excited.

I also return to Costa Rica in a week. This time for good. Turns out, LA is not for me anymore. All my work is remote now. I am free.

I am living yet another dream and following where the path leads.

It’s not how many times life knocks you down.

It’s about how many times you get up.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
We’d be in Costa Rica.

We’d be up with sun, surfing.

Yoga on the beach.

Breakfast of plantains, rice and beans, and eggs.

Fishing for Mahi.

Picking fruit from the trees.

We’d catch some live music.

Sit in a drum circle.

Take psychedelics with Shaman and expand our consciousness.

Sit under the stars and aks questions there are no answers to.

See every sunset and sunsise.

Watch some spoken word.

Train jiu jitsu.

Hike to jungle waterfalls.

At the end, we’d Ride motorcycles south through Panama to the Darian Gap and dare each other to try and make it through to Columbia…

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
25 years ago I was a young Lawyer in NYC and miserable. I worked for brilliant man named Bob Summer. At one time, he was President of Sony Music International.

He was aware I was writing screenplays in my spare time and called me into his office. He told me he appreciated my work and that he’d love for me to stay with the company, but he could tell that being a lawyer wasn’t my passion. He told me that if I really wanted to write, now was the time to take my shot. At 25, not 45.

So took it. A year later I had an agent and manager and I had sold a pitch to Paramount. I was a working screenwriter in Hollywood for over a decade because a brilliant man who cared about my happiness gave me the push that I needed.

Instagram: @Zen.Ronin.Rebel

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dispensarygrowth/

Other: jpdonahue@me.com

Nominate Someone: ShoutoutLA is built on recommendations and shoutouts from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.