Breaking the stigma with evidence, not opinion.
Our mission is to break the stigma surrounding medical cannabis by championing evidence-based research and education. We strive to empower the global cannabis community by providing a trusted, centralized hub for comprehensive medical and legal cannabis information.
From a campus club to a global cannabis database
CannaBase began in 2022 in classrooms at the Atlanta University Center, where we designed a medical cannabis science curriculum, taught it over a full semester, and tested what students actually retained. That work grew into an annual conference and a curriculum now running at more than one Atlanta institution.
The database came out of the same need. Practitioners, students, and patients had nowhere to look up what the research actually says, or what the law actually is, without wading through sources that disagree. So we built one place for both. It launched with 10,000 studies and now holds more than 100,000, alongside current cannabis law for all fifty states.
Everything we publish is tied back to its source, because the point was never to tell people what to think about cannabis. It was to let them see the evidence and decide.
The team behind the platform
Scientists, operators, and educators building the trusted source for cannabis research and law.
Justin Buck, M.S.
Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder
Justin Buck is a medical cannabis scientist, technologist, and three time business owner on a mission to destigmatize cannabis through evidence-based education, innovative products, and community-centered wellness. While in graduate school, he contributed to the development of a medical cannabis curriculum that earned Continuing Medical Education credit at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. Before CannaBase, Justin spent more than four years at Gusto, where he managed payroll functions for 300 cannabis-related companies representing $1.2 million in annual recurring revenue.
He leads CannaBase as a research and education platform delivering evidence-based cannabis science curricula to institutions nationwide, including on-campus programming at Morehouse College and Clark Atlanta University. He is also the Founder and CEO of Pearl Rolling Company, where he invented and patented a pre-boated rolling paper (USD890984S1) now carried in more than 30 retail locations, and serves as Chief Technology Officer at Bookstore Gallery, Atlanta's first botanical and wellness lounge.
- M.S. Medical Cannabis Science and Therapeutics, University of Maryland School of Pharmacy
- B.A. Business Management, Morehouse College
Michael Lawson, Jr., M.S.
Chief Operating Officer and Co-Founder
Michael Lawson, Jr. is a versatile leader and strategist with a strong background in community development, counseling, and organizational design. His career spans over a decade of guiding organizations and communities toward more effective systems of growth, engagement, and empowerment, with expertise across organizational development and strategic planning, business and real estate consulting, and instructional design.
Michael began his career as a multisystemic therapist for juveniles in the DeKalb County juvenile court system, working directly with young people and their families on the conditions that drive justice involvement. He is the Founder and President of Lawson Bros, LLC, a joint venture that operates twelve food and beverage establishments within Los Angeles International Airport, and has built a profitable residential investment real estate portfolio. At CannaBase he co-founded and operates the SaaS and data platform mapping cannabis laws and research across every country in the world.
- M.S. Mental Health Counseling, Mercer University
- B.A. English, Morehouse College
Kyle Brown, MBA
Chief Strategy Officer
Kyle Brown is an entrepreneur and operations strategist with over a decade of experience leading teams, optimizing systems, and building businesses that merge culture with commerce. His background spans global supply chain management, pricing, and finance, and he brings deep proficiency in blockchain, artificial intelligence, and mobile and internet connectivity to his work. A commitment to inclusive entrepreneurship runs through everything he builds. Earlier in his career Kyle managed a $60 million global procurement portfolio at Cummins Inc., leading cross-functional projects in supply chain, pricing, and vendor performance improvement, and he designed and implemented global supplier scorecard systems that increased efficiency and transparency across 90 international vendors.
At CannaBase he focuses on expanding the platform's reach in cannabis wellness education through certified curriculum programming, virtual subscriptions, and the CannaBase Conference series. He is also Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Bookstore Gallery, where he oversees organizational growth, strategic partnerships, and community development, and serves as Chief Acquisition Officer at Decentralized. He also created Live Malawi, a CBD-based wellness brand whose products include freeze rubs, massage oils, and bath bombs.
- MBA Operations Management and Entrepreneurship, Emory University
- B.A. Business Finance, Morehouse College
Danyell Little, MBA
Chief Financial Officer
Danyell Little is a strategic and results-driven finance and operations executive with over a decade of experience leading high-impact initiatives across the municipal and private sectors. She has been a certified Lean Six Sigma Green Belt since 2019. Previously, as Director of Client Success at SP+, she managed municipal operations budgets of more than $15 million, driving profitability through process optimization and compliance innovation. She founded and chaired the SP+ Municipal Advisor Forum, advancing collaborative leadership and fiscal transparency.
As Chief Financial Officer of both CannaBase and Bookstore Gallery, she oversees the financial health of the businesses end to end. She manages the companies' books and monthly reconciliations, leads cost analysis across operations, and drives cost reduction in product development.
- M.B.A. Business Administration, Columbus State University
- B.A. Philosophy and B.S. Criminology, Georgia State University
Counsel that keeps us grounded
Medical and legal advisors who shape how we approach cannabis care and law.
Uma Dhanabalan, MD, MPH, FAAFP, MRO, CMS
Advisory Board, Clinical and Cannabinoid Medicine
Dr. Uma is a highly respected physician trained in Family Medicine and Occupational and Environmental Medicine, specialized in Heavy Metals from Harvard. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians, a Medical Review Officer, and a Diplomat Certified in Cannabinoid Medicine.
Dr. Uma is the Founder and CEO of Global Health & Hygiene Solutions, LLC and Uplifting Health & Wellness, whose mission is to promote wellness and prevent illness locally and globally. A board-certified family physician and cannabinoid medicine educator, she is known for giving practitioners a balanced view of cannabis: where it may help, where it can harm, and how to counsel patients toward safer use.
- M.D., University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, Newark
- M.P.H., Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
- B.A. Physiology and Zoology, Rutgers University, Newark
Shoshanna Robinson, PharmD, M.S.
Advisory Board
Shoshanna Robinson is the Georgia Clinical Director at Trulieve, where she specializes in bridging traditional pharmacy practice with medical cannabis therapeutics.
She is also adjunct faculty at the Morehouse School of Medicine, teaching Cell Biology in the medical cannabis therapeutics concentration of the Biotechnology master's degree program, and brings clinical experience from institutions including the Winship Cancer Institute of Emory Midtown.
Her dual training in pharmacy and in medical cannabis science places her at the exact intersection CannaBase serves. As a clinical director she works daily with the questions practitioners actually ask: which product types suit which patients, how routes of administration change onset and duration, what first-pass metabolism means for dosing, and how the entourage effect is properly explained to someone hearing it for the first time.
- PharmD, Mercer University College of Pharmacy
- M.S. Medical Cannabis Science and Therapeutics, University of Maryland School of Pharmacy
Jasmin Mize, Esq., M.S.
Advisory Board
Jasmin Mize is a civil rights and criminal defense attorney with over 15 years of experience as an attorney, educator, and manager of legal services. She is on faculty at the Morehouse School of Medicine, teaching State and Federal Cannabis Law and Policy, and teaches trial skills at Georgetown University.
She has held faculty appointments at CUNY School of Law and the UDC David A. Clarke School of Law, and served as a Senior Supervising Attorney at a national civil rights organization, where she led major civil rights litigation across the American South. Her practice and scholarship have focused on the cannabis industry since 2016.
- J.D. and M.S. Clinical Teaching, UDC David A. Clarke School of Law
Evidence you can act on
CannaBase brings peer-reviewed cannabis research and current cannabis law into one searchable place, so clinicians, students, and patients can find real answers.