Stone Road Embraces Small-Batch Cannabis and the Modern Consumer

While the Stone Road website is beautiful and engaging, it doesn’t necessarily look like other cannabis web pages (and that isn’t by accident). 

Type in stoneroad.org, and you’ll be met with a delicate graphic of the cursive, gold-ribbon logo on the screen, the page prompting your cursor to “click to grow,” with each click prompting a small animal or plant emerging from the screen. The Nevada City, California cannabis brand’s packaging continues this aesthetic delight, boasting floral motifs and delicate accents that feel fully distinct from the modern-day cannabis market’s hard and heavy branding.

Lex Corwin, founder of Stone Road, knew he wanted to get into the cannabis industry back in 2016, but as he crept further in, he knew he wanted to approach his brand differently than those he saw popping up around the state.

As someone new to the ever-growing legal cannabis industry of California, Corwin didn’t see himself, or people within the LGBTQ community, reflected in the abundant advertising and marketing materials that have become increasingly visible through the years. 

“Like, OK, you either have a girl on the phone, heavily tattooed taking dabs by a pool, or you have, like, farmer vibes, ‘Oh, we’re up here tilling the soil and, oh, beers! A cold one by the lake,’ and I was just like, ‘Alright, both of these are boring to me,’” Corwin recalls.

In the early days of Stone Road, he built his network for the brand around his real-life community, which was made up predominantly of LGBTQ people. When looking outside the tropes of the cannabis market, Corwin saw conventionally and unconventionally beautiful people of all shapes and forms, celebrating themselves on social media and in the world. To him, this is the modern cannabis consumer.

Though, Corwin says, “We don’t want to be known as, like, the ‘gay company;’ we want to be known as a cannabis company that reflects the world as it is.”

Corwin recognizes that gay people feel underrepresnted in mainstream marketing, but it’s a bigger, more intersectional conversation: How can Stone Road be accessible for everyone?

In this aim, he says a lot of the content Stone Road embraces and builds their brand on simply comes from people who want to get involved. The vast majority of those people just happen to be queer—producing unapologetically queer content—though he notes that people began flocking to the brand innately over time, seeing themselves in it and wanting their voice to be part of Stone Road’s story.

“What group of people can we tap into next that maybe people wouldn’t necessarily think use cannabis, enjoy cannabis?” Corwin asks. “Just looking at the communities that are excited about Stone Road, and tapping those communities to see like what they have to offer, how we can collaborate—The whole thing that’s just like extremely organic.”

Corwin says the push and pull is so innate that the Stone Road crew rarely need to reach out for additional help from creatives and photographers, often receiving an abundance of support from folks who are naturally inspired to contribute to the brand.

Stone Road’s approach to their brand and marketing isn’t the only thing that sets it apart. 

The farm is 100 percent organic; it’s run completely off the grid (with nothing pulled through the county, water wheel, or city power); the packaging is 99 percent recyclable and made from 100 percent post-consumer recycled goods, and ultimately, they allow the plant to grow as intended, in small batches to fully give each plant individualized attention.

“In the way that you’re doing 100,000 crops or 10 acres of greenhouse, you know—It’s just factory farming for cannabis,” Corwin poses. “It’s not going to really have that much personality. You’re not going to get a sense of the terroir—the property or where it’s coming from.”

The company first launched in the medical-only days, and once California moved toward recreational cannabis, Stone Road saw a shift, too. Advertising and marketing for recreational cannabis allowed Stone Road to shift away from the patient focus they previously had to more playful marketing. 

The pandemic also contributed to Stone Road’s growth, and while the brand is continuing to blossom, Corwin emphasizes they are still a tiny company, with less than 10 people, and that utilizing community is increasingly essential.

“I feel like if we keep funneling money and product, and just generally good vibes, into the communities that we are trying to reach—you know, gay people, Black people, minorities in general—they’re very attuned to who is on their side and who is not. And we want to just be overwhelmingly on their side,” Corwin says.

Part of that aim is also supporting those communities outside of the cannabis lens. 

Corwin grew up in New York City, and during the pandemic, Stone Road sponsored murals to paint over the plywood that covered many businesses throughout the city. He recalls another instance, when a Los Angeles nurse and customer reached out because she was getting evicted, and Stone Road helped her to secure safe housing.

“We’re not just a company,” Corwin says. “We’re a group of individuals who are genuinely trying to do the right thing. And we’re gonna do everything in our power to generally lift up the communities from which we came.”

While Corwin says the industry as a whole still has a long way to go in regard to more inclusive marketing, he hopes that Stone Road can pave the way, ensuring that community members know they are seen and that their voices are not just heard but needed and mutually beneficial.

Looking forward, Corwin is eyeing the New York market for Stone Road. Because the state’s market is essentially going from nothing to full recreational, he points out that extremely corporate, multi-billion-dollar companies will have the leg up. “We have to have some cool homegrown brands, too.”

To learn more about Stone Road and their mission, visit their website, stoneroad.org, or check them out on Instagram @stoneroadfarms.