Working in the Medical Cannabis Business,  Sarah Whitmire is Okie Charmed

By Cindy Lockstone

Sarah Whitmire is a businesswoman. She is young, smart, educated, and savvy. She is a colleague, friend, sister,  and a mom to her young son and daughter.  

Her career is in Oklahoma medical cannabis. Sarah wears two hats at her job. She is the office manager at Freedom Road dispensaries.  She also works for the company’s wholesale side, Highway Lines, as the wholesale manager, a medical cannabis product supplier. Both are new startup companies to the Oklahoma City area.

 Sarah masters her new profession with elation, optimism, passion, and business success. 

A Yukon, Oklahoma native, Sarah graduated high school and left Oklahoma to pursue a career in ministry at a theology college in Texas. She dabbled in private equities, became an esthetician, and then life got in the way and her career took a different path. 

It was after Oklahoma had legalized medical marijuana that Sarah got a call from her brother-in-law. He was thinking of moving back to Oklahoma to start a medical cannabis business.

“That is how I got my start in the cannabis business,” said Sarah. “I began this journey and didn’t know much at all about the cannabis industry. I went into it completely blind.” 

After Sarah learned the ends and outs of her family’s medical cannabis business, she decided this industry was going to be a good fit for her. 

“I came into the cannabis business from a conservative family upbringing,” added Sarah. "But once I started working with customers and saw the medicinal benefits of this plant, I knew I had found my niche."

With the knowledge she gained from working at her brother-in-law’s medical cannabis business and learning its ins-and-outs, it was time for Sarah to start her own career in medical cannabis. In 2021, a new-to-Oklahoma company, Freedom Road, hired Sarah. Freedom Road dispensary opened less than a year ago with two locations in south and north Oklahoma City.

Sarah is currently the office manager at Freedom Road South. This young businesswoman is quick to tell her customers that Freedom Road offers its customers a variety of high-quality medical cannabis products.

Her colleagues are knowledgeable and can answer any questions customers have about the cannabis products available at Freedom Road.

Highway Lines are the cultivating grow side, and Sarah oversees the day-to-day operations of a 30,000 square foot in-house, state-of-the-art medical cannabis grow facility while promoting its product to other medical cannabis retailers. 

"I think it's especially important to raise public awareness about the many benefits of medical cannabis," said Sarah. 

Once you enter Highway Lines' cultivation facility, you enter a high-quality, high-tech, and controlled environment. It won’t take you long to realize that growing medical marijuana as a lucrative business is anything but easy.

Sarah is one of the few female business leaders in the medical cannabis industry. 

Taylor West, current board member and former deputy director of the National Cannabis Industry Association, has stated that established industries have generations of male dominated businesses, and that makes advancement difficult for women. But in the cannabis industry, women leaders now have an opening in this new and booming industry, to encourage each other and help more women rise up the corporate medical cannabis ladder. 

In 2020, Oklahoma’s medical marijuana sales were close to $831,000,000 and projected sales in 2022 could reach $1 billion according to New Frontier Data.

Sara Whitmire never imagined she would be working in medical cannabis management when she was growing up. 

Today, she educates herself, spends the time learning the business, and keeps up with the changing Oklahoma medical cannabis market.  She is committed to producing a high-quality product while listening to her staff members and customers. 

Who knows, Sarah could possibly put a dent in the old marijuana/weed stigmas from the past.