Colorado Marijuana Enforcement Division, Rulemaking Work Group
Appointed to help shape the state’s manufacturing and testing rules.
Speaking · Research · Media
Translating early-stage cannabinoid and psychedelic science into products, standards, and policy that hold up in the real world.
For over a decade, Mike Hennesy has worked at the point where the science meets the market: running innovation at the largest edibles brand in the United States, co-authoring the clinical trials that test what the industry claims, and sitting on the state work groups that write the rules. What follows is the public record of that work: the studies, the panels, the policy conversations, and the arguments made along the way.
Speaking
Mike speaks to industry audiences, scientific conferences, regulators, and investors. Sessions are built for the room: a keynote, a workshop, a panel, or a moderated policy discussion.
Why the marijuana–hemp regulatory divide is a policy accident rather than a scientific one, and what a unified federal framework respecting state autonomy would actually look like.
The plant has more than 500 compounds. What the science says about minor cannabinoids, terpene interaction, and formulating for outcomes instead of potency.
How to design and fund clinical research that satisfies scientists, regulators, and a commercial P&L at the same time, and where most industry-sponsored studies go wrong.
Bioavailability, onset, duration, and encapsulation: how delivery science becomes a product category. Drawn from developing fast-acting edibles and then running the trial that measured whether they work.
What manufacturing standards it takes to build an industry that rewards responsible operators and excludes the rest.
What the cannabis sector learned the hard way about commercializing ahead of evidence, and what psychedelics can do differently.
Available for keynotes, panels, moderation, advisory boards, expert commentary, and closed-door briefings. Headshot, bio, and past session recordings available on request.
Research
Two published trials, both testing claims the industry makes routinely and evidences rarely.
“Fast-acting” became a product category before anyone had measured whether it was true. This trial put it to the test: twenty participants, three conditions (a microencapsulated fast-acting edible, a conventional edible, and placebo), and serial blood draws measuring THC and metabolites.
The encapsulated product reached peak concentration at 30 minutes, roughly half an hour ahead of the standard edible. Peak concentration, elimination rate, and total exposure were statistically indistinguishable between the two. In plain terms: the technology changes when, not how much, which is precisely the claim worth making, and the one the category should be held to.
Cannabinol is one of the most heavily marketed sleep ingredients in the industry and, until this trial, one of the least evidenced. This randomized placebo-controlled study tested CBN alone and in combination with CBD against placebo for sleep disturbance, the kind of study the category needed and had largely avoided funding.
Coverage: NORML · Society of Cannabis Clinicians · ResearchGate
Policy
Appointed to help shape the state’s manufacturing and testing rules.
Public education standards for a regulated market.
Advisory board member, and moderator of the summit’s One-Plant Policy Panel.
Engagements
“The ‘Endocannabinoidome’: A New Idea about ECS Integration in the Human Body.”
Conversations
Bridging the marijuana–hemp policy divide, the case for a unified federal framework, and what cGMP requirements would mean for the industry.
On the first master’s program in cannabis science and therapeutics, building endocannabinoid education for the people actually behind the counter, and innovation in cannabinoid delivery.
“Innovation spans from genetics of plants and how they are grown to how you deliver cannabinoids to the body.”
On evaluating twenty-plus bioavailability platforms, designing for use case rather than potency, and what the industry owes the communities criminalization harmed.
Press
“The plant has more than 500 compounds to explore, but THC gets all the attention.”
On moving from spraying finished product to infusing during cooking, and designing fast-acting edibles for a use case rather than a dose.
Profile, including the origin of the work: watching a friend with epilepsy lose access to the medicine that worked.
The door is open for consulting engagements, speaking, and research collaboration.
Speaking inquiries: send topic, audience, and date, and Mike will come
back with a fit assessment and availability.
Media and expert commentary: available for background, attribution, and
technical review on cannabinoid science, product formulation, and regulatory policy.