Texas Marijuana Advocacy Virtual Workshop

Jax James

Executive Director

Informed Texas

Jax Finkel is Executive Director for Foundation for an Informed Texas. After a decade of involvement in marijuana law reform, she founded this 501c3 nonprofit which focuses on rural education. In her tenure, Jax has given hundreds of interviews and participated in many panel discussions and speaking engagements. Foundation for an Informed Texas produced the first medical cannabis ad, which played in rural areas on Fox News and MSNBC. She created curriculum, helped organize and execute regional workshops from 2015 to present. She believes in freely sharing information and facilitating organizational growth.

David Bass

Major

U.S. Army, Retired

Lisa Sewell

Operations Director

Texans for Responsible Marijuana Policy

Lisa has been a fierce advocate working her now third legislative session testifying at the Capitol, working closely with lawmakers to push high standards of reform. Lisa has a background in professional advocacy by organizing events, press releases, drafted resolutions for local municipalities and assisted in hosting nationwide conferences. She is now the Operations Director for Texans for Responsible Marijuana Policy.

Susan Hays

Susan Hays is a lawyer, advocate, and crisis manager based in Austin, Texas, with more than twenty-five years’ experience in law and politics.  Her practice now focuses on cannabis law, from hemp to the full regulatory scheme of cannabis.  She has drafted license applications, served as the general counsel of a publicly traded, touch-the-plant cannabis company, and most recently was intimately involved in the drafting and passage of Texas’s 2019 hemp law.

She began her legal career as a legislative aide to a Texas House member.  She moved a few dozen yards north to clerk at the Supreme Court of Texas.  In the years since, she has represented individual clients, corporations, and organizations in the courts and the political realm, drawing from a broad skill set to employ the best tactics to achieve the client’s goals whether litigation, press strategy, or legislative advocacy.

In addition to a general appellate practice, she also practices in campaign compliance and legal ethics.  She has advised multiple candidates from local to statewide offices around the state on legal and political matters.  Her contacts are statewide, developed from twenty-five years of political involvement around Texas.

She has been Board Certified in Civil Appellate Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization since 2005.  She has handled cases ranging from securities fraud to civil rights, arguing to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, the Supreme Court of Texas, and numerous lower appellate courts.  She has had her own practice since 2004, after working at Waters & Kraus, L.L.P. and Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld L.L.P.  She routinely makes the Super Lawyers list for Texas.  She earned her B.A. in 1992 from the University of Texas at Austin and her J.D. in 1996 from Georgetown University Law Center. 

Susan has long been very involved in civic life serving on numerous non-profit boards.  She currently serves on the advisory board to the Annette Strauss Institute for Civic Life.  She is most proud of co-founding Jane’s Due Process, Inc., a legal services nonprofit for Texas minors.

While she earned her chops analyzing complex legal issues and creating simple, persuasive legal arguments despite that complexity, she also relishes getting her boots dirty to investigate facts on the ground.  Likewise, she is equally at home in a big city boardroom as in a small town courtroom. 

Amanda Grace Hughes

Texans for Responsible Marijuana Policy

Amanda Grace Hughes is a cannabis educator, advocate, and medical cannabis patient. She is an experienced licensed esthetician, an enamored herbalist, a skincare formulator and a spa owner in Dallas. She is the founder of the organization Higher Education Texas where she educates on the precious cannabis plant and the laws surrounding it. Amanda is also the Communications Manager for TRMP. She is passionate about justice for people and justice for the plant. 

Morgan Fox

Political Director

NORML

Morgan Fox is the Political Director at NORML, focusing on congressional lobbying and changing federal cannabis laws. As a professional cannabis policy reform advocate since 2008, Morgan has been directly involved in dozens of successful state ballot initiative campaigns to establish medical and adult use cannabis programs, as well as legislative victories at the local, state, and federal levels. He has been featured in hundreds of print, radio, television, and online publications. Morgan was most recently the Media Relations Director and chief spokesperson for the National Cannabis Industry Association (NCIA) before joining NORML, and spent nearly a decade at the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) prior to that. He lives in Washington, DC, and when he’s not working to end prohibition and repair the damage it has caused, he can usually be found exploring the numerous parks and playgrounds of our nation’s capital with his children.