It’s not easy becoming a multi-millionaire in the marijuana business

It’s 7 o’clock in the morning Thursday at the Rio hotel-casino, and 30-something Lisa Harun has already been on the phone for three hours discussing what she believes is the best way to get stoned — through the vaporizing of marijuana.

Don’t let anybody kid you — it’s not easy becoming a multimillionaire in the reefer business.

She has been on the phone chatting up business acquaintances in Europe and also in China. She and her partner, Michael Trzecieski, have a factory that makes dope vaporizers in the Far East.

Like about 8,000 other entrepreneurs from around the globe, Harun, a Canadian, is in Las Vegas this week for the 5th Annual Marijuana Business Conference and Expo, an event that allows individuals to talk solemnly about many pothead issues, including the medical phenomenon of brainfarts — the temporary loss of mental acuity from highly potent weed.

The event is sponsored by the Marijuana Business Daily — its clever editors call it the most trusted cannabusiness (get it?) news source since 2011. This online journal, which carries all the marijuana news that is fit to print, does not encourage attendees’ participation in a hotbox, the smoking of weed inside a vehicle with the windows rolled up.

Instead, it encourages Harun and others — all attendees are on a natural high because Nevadans voted to make recreational grass legal for adults starting in January — to show off some of the best ways to get blitzed.

While the herb couldn’t be part of her exhibition, Harun said she was more than happy to show off the vaporizing device her company, Vapium Inc., has made to help people get buzzed where the deer and the antelope play.

“I want people to enjoy vaping outside,” she said.

Why enjoy the smell of pine when vaporized weed makes you feel so fine?

Small vaporizers like her Summit Plus Strain Hunters Edition — Vicks has never made one for hunters — heat marijuana at a cooler temperature than required for burning or combustion.

The temperature of vaporization is around 392 degrees Farenheit. At that temperature, the active ingredients in weed are converted into a vapor that is cleaner than the equivalent smoke produced by smoking. When inhaled, it also has more effect, making you better able to forget your Hyundai was just repossessed after you lost five grand on the Strip.

Harun, who is in charge of the marketing for her company, which she believes will do more than $10 million in sales next year, continually stresses that a Vapium vaporizer is watertight, making you think it was engineered like a submarine.

That’s why she is so upset with GQ magazine’s April 20, 2015, article, “Which Weed Vape Is Right For You?”

In that article, the author wrote, “the Vapium Summit is not waterproof , so vaping (marijuana) in the shower remains a dream unrealized by mankind.”

Harun, sounding much like President-elect Donald Trump, said the media got it wrong. The way she talks you could just about have a Las Vegas firefighter hose you down from 5 feet away and you could still enjoy vaping weed.

She said she has vaped in the shower on a regular basis. Though she had no visual proof of having done it and did not offer a device for me to use in the shower, I tend to believe her.

I remember how everyone in my unit in Vietnam was impressed with how Specialist W.P. Leahy could keep a Kent going in the shower. But it’s also true he had to hold his head at about a 45-degree angle to keep his smoke lit. Maybe the same angle is at play with Harun’s $150 vaporizer.

Anyway, as you might expect, Harun and the rest of the marijuana business crowd at the Rio isn’t sure about Trump’s position on weed.

In fact, the Marijuana Business Daily, which late Thursday was still publishing all the marijuana news that is fit to print, wrote that Ethan Nadelmann, the executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, was particularly fearful of Trump.

“Who knows what he’s going to do?” Nadelman said. “And, even more importantly … who’s advising him on this stuff?”

Don’t worry, Ethan.

It’s just some angry white men. When’s the last time they got their way?

Paul Harasim’s column runs Sunday, Tuesday and Friday in the Nevada section and Monday in the Life section. Contact him at pharasim@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5273. Follow @paulharasim on Twitter.