Dan Herer is bringing his father’s legendary name to New York through legacy genetics, independent growers, and a belief that the cannabis industry has forgotten some of the people who got it here.
Jack Herer’s name is everywhere in cannabis. It’s on jars, dispensary menus, and countless strain lists. But somewhere between legalization and the race to build the next billion-dollar weed company, the name of one of cannabis prohibition’s fiercest opponents became something else entirely: a product.
His son, Dan Herer, has spent years trying to protect what that name represents. Now he’s bringing the family brand to New York, partnering with longtime cannabis operator Dave Vroubel to introduce Jack Herer genetics to a market that’s still figuring out what kind of industry it wants to become.
The move feels personal. Jack was born in Brooklyn, and Dan sees New York as an opportunity to reconnect his father’s history with a new generation of consumers. But getting here wasn’t as simple as finding somebody willing to write a check.
Bringing Jack Back to His Brooklyn Roots
“Hot market or not, it’s really about my father being born here in Brooklyn,” Dan tells High Times.
Jack grew up in Buffalo before the family established itself in California in 1967. That connection made New York a natural destination, but Dan wasn’t interested in rushing into the market simply because recreational sales were taking off.
New York’s limited cultivation infrastructure, coupled with the financial pressure facing growers, made traditional licensing difficult. For a company built around genetics and brand partnerships, convincing an operator to surrender another piece of its margins required patience.
“We had to wait and develop relationships and find the right partner to start bringing our genetics in and actually producing them for the market here,” Dan explains.
He wanted relationships with farms, retailers, and communities that understood what the Herer name carried.
“Instead of coming in like the 800-pound gorilla, we want to be welcomed into New York and not feel like we have the right to be here, but that we’ve earned an opportunity to be here.”
That approach challenges the playbook many cannabis brands have followed during legalization. Expansion often becomes a numbers game: acquire licenses, secure shelf space, increase production, and hope consumers recognize the logo. For Herer, recognition has never been the problem. The problem is whether the flower deserves it.
Not Every Jack Is Jack
Few cannabis names have traveled as far as Jack Herer. The strain became a fixture of cannabis culture, but Dan argues that name recognition has also created confusion about authenticity.
“Just because something says Jack Herer on the package doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s Jack. It means that somebody’s put the Jack name on it.”
Dan sees the distinction as fundamental. “We look at it as if it doesn’t have our signature, if it doesn’t have my father’s touch on the product spiritually at this point, but if it doesn’t have what it would have meant to him, then it’s just not Jack.”
The New York partnership includes 11 Herer-associated genetics, according to Dan, with selections such as Emperor’s Cut, Skyline Sensei, and Third Eye Kind. Each is intended to establish an identity beyond the flagship strain.
The packaging carries that same thinking. Dan describes incorporating historical cannabis imagery and symbols meant to spark curiosity about the plant’s history.
For him, the challenge is giving consumers something worth understanding after the purchase.
“It can’t just be about making money. It has to be about why the fuck are you here?”
That’s a pointed question for an industry increasingly shaped by investors, marketing departments, and quarterly expectations. Jack Herer spent his life arguing that cannabis prohibition was fundamentally wrong. His son now operates in a world where cannabis can be legal, heavily taxed, and financially punishing all at once.
The contradiction isn’t lost on him.
A Partnership Built Outside the Corporate Playbook
Dave Vroubel, the New York operator behind the partnership, didn’t meet Dan through a conventional licensing pitch. Their connection began through cannabis. Vroubel recalls visiting Boulder, Colorado, while sourcing flower for a cannabis dinner at his club, the Mooney House. There, he met Alex Bark and became impressed with the cultivation operation and its genetics.
A few years later, Vroubel met Dan in Spain. They connected over their shared approach to cannabis and the kind of operation they wanted to build. Vroubel wasn’t pitching a massive cultivation campus or promising immediate domination of the New York market.
“We knew we had a small micro grow. We were going to do it with love.”
His team now operates in Woodstock, working with experienced legacy growers and handling cultivation and post-production for the New York market.
Vroubel’s own history is rooted in the traditional market. Before transitioning into licensed cannabis, he organized the movement of flower grown in Colorado and California into New York, where it was sold through Brooklyn and delivery networks.
“I never really touched the flower except to smoke it. I just organized and created the whole thing.”
That experience informs his current operation, which connects genetics, cultivators, and retailers within the state’s licensed system. At the time of this interview, the partnership’s products are available in 12 dispensaries, a deliberately limited footprint. For Dan, the smaller scale fits a philosophy shaped by watching cannabis companies chase enormous facilities and ambitious projections.
“There’s no easy anything in cannabis anymore.”
He argues that size and financial backing don’t automatically produce a sustainable business. More important is finding operators who understand the responsibility attached to the plant and the people who helped build its culture.
“If their center is something we can share, then that makes a great partner.”
From Woodstock to Tribeca
One of the partnership’s early retail homes is AltoCanna, a family-owned dispensary in Tribeca operated by five siblings. Co-owner Stephanie Savocchi says the family left their previous careers to build the business together. Their purchasing philosophy is straightforward: They try the products they sell, and every product must earn its place on the menu.
“We have a very curated menu,” Savocchi explains.
The store serves a mix of neighborhood residents, commuters, students, and tourists. Savocchi credits the family’s direct relationship with customers for helping introduce unfamiliar products. She says the Herer flower sold through its initial allocation within days, with Vroubel reporting four reorders during the month of the interview.
The initial products are eighth-ounce flower jars, with Vroubel quoting retail prices ranging from $55 to $70 across New York. Pre-rolls and solventless rosin were described as planned additions, though those launches had not yet been confirmed at the time of the conversation.
The broader lineup also includes genetics associated with Vroubel’s side of the operation, including OG Kush, 92 OG, and Sour Diesel. These are strains tied to an earlier era of New York cannabis, when bicycle delivery services and informal networks helped define how the city consumed. Vroubel wants that history reflected in the legal market.
“Legacy strains are really what we’re built on, and there’s no better legacy Sativa than Jack. There just isn’t.”
For longtime consumers, those names carry memories. For younger customers, they may simply represent another option on an increasingly crowded dispensary shelf. That generational divide presents Dan with a challenge that goes well beyond cultivation.
The Generation That Knows the Strain but Not the Man
I asked Dan about the growing number of younger cannabis consumers who recognize Jack Herer as a strain before recognizing him as an activist. Dan didn’t see younger consumers’ unfamiliarity with his father as a failure on their part.
“That’s not to discount youth as being uninterested, just uninformed.”
He believes discovering the person behind the name can change how someone understands cannabis. Jack’s work connected the plant to civil liberties, prohibition, industrial hemp, and the broader fight for reform. For Dan, preserving that history is one of the brand’s most important responsibilities.
“The story behind the Jack Herr brand is, I think, more powerful than the genetic itself,” he says.
There’s a tension here that reaches across the industry. Legal cannabis businesses depend on younger consumers, yet many of those consumers entered the market after the movement’s defining battles had already been fought. The people who organized rallies, published underground literature, challenged prohibition, and risked arrest can become little more than names attached to products.
Dan wants the next generation to inherit something beyond a smoking preference. He wants people to understand why access exists and why the political fight remains unfinished.
“Everything that we do today is not because we didn’t fight; it’s because we’re still fighting.”
Legal Weed Still Needs Activists
We started talking about cannabis advocacy and whether the industry’s commercial pressures have distracted businesses from the movement that made legalization possible. Dan acknowledged the difficulty of operating in a regulated market while trying to preserve the principles that shaped his father’s activism.
“That was my father’s whole mission, that nobody should ever go to jail for this plant.”
Legalization created an industry, but it also introduced rules, taxes, licensing costs, and commercial pressures that many longtime operators struggle to navigate. Dan sees a system that invited cannabis entrepreneurs into the legal economy without necessarily making success attainable.
“These rules aren’t really designed for us to succeed. They’re designed for us to fail.”
That frustration raises a difficult question. When cannabis operators are occupied with payroll, cultivation costs, regulatory compliance, and keeping their doors open, who has the time or resources to continue fighting for reform?
Dan believes advocacy needs to expand beyond its traditional boundaries. Cannabis businesses are now taxpayers, employers, neighbors, and participants in local economies. Their political influence should reflect that reality.
He wants the industry to reconnect with the wider communities it serves, including the people who might never identify themselves as cannabis activists.
“We are the community. So to listen to us is to listen to any regular constituents.”
It’s a continuation of his father’s argument, adapted to a vastly different industry. Jack fought for the right to access the plant. Dan is confronting what happens after that access becomes a business.
A Name Worth Protecting
The New York launch offers a revealing test of what legacy means in modern cannabis. There are easier ways to capitalize on a famous name than carefully selecting cultivation partners, working through limited production, and building relationships with independent retailers.
There are also plenty of opportunities for the Herer brand to expand beyond its current footprint. Whether that happens will depend on the consistency of the flower, the strength of the partnerships, and the ability to distinguish genuine heritage from familiar packaging.
Dan understands the commercial stakes. He also knows that his father’s reputation can’t be rebuilt if it’s squandered. His objective is to keep the business connected to the values that gave the name its significance.
“I want to be responsible for how he brought me up. I want to be responsible to the community that he fought for, loved and died for. I want to be responsible to my family.”
The cannabis industry has spent years turning counterculture into commerce. Jack Herer’s name made that journey too. Now his son is trying to make sure the story survives the sale.
Images courtesy of Altocanna
