“I think the NHCC is extremely important due to the underrepresentation of the Hispanic/Latino community in the legal cannabis industry. It is crucial that the Hispanic and Latino communities become educated about the benefits of cannabis and ways in which they can get involved.”

Billy Maddox is a Hispanic American who was born in Huntington Beach, CA in the mid 1980s. He began his cannabis journey in high school with an outdoor grow at his parents’ house when his father was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s follicular lymphoma and was using cannabis as a medicine. 

With a love of music and video he pursued a career in the music industry making videos and documentaries with artists such as Van Morrison and Zac Brown Band, keeping cannabis as a side project and passion. Traveling for video work and continuing to grow, he expanded to new locations both indoor and outdoor, and the supply quickly outweighed the demand. Billy and his long-term growing partner started a cannabis dispensary in early 2006 and had great success after some initial pitfalls. Cannabis, always being his true passion, quickly took over the day to day and he continued to hone his craft. Billy’s medical dispensary count grew to 13 stores until the California proposition D passed, shutting down all of the medical stores in California except those few that had the necessary permits. Down to one compliant store, he and his partners quickly pivoted to extracting the cannabis they had been growing for so long. In late 2014 he and his partners founded Moxie Seeds and Extracts, which operates in many states in the United States and has won over 90 industry awards in the cannabis space for both extracts and flowers.