Despite Cannabis garnering attention lately, with many states legalizing marijuana for medical and/or recreational use, the burgeoning Cannabis industry has been deficient in structure, security and transparency. Paragon is a blockchain for the marijuana industry. Paragon’s mission and protocol is detailed in their whitepaper, released today.

1. Paragon Announces High-Profile
Project to Help Legitimize the
Legal Marijuana Industry
Source: Paragon
PRESS RELEASE
 AL, August 15, 2017 at 15:31 UTC
August 15, 2017 -- Oakland, California -- Despite Cannabis
garnering attention lately, with many states legalizing
marijuana for medical and/or recreational use, the
burgeoning Cannabis industry has been deficient in
structure, security and transparency. Paragon is a
blockchain for the marijuana industry. Paragon’s mission
and protocol is detailed in their whitepaper, released
today.
A blockchain is a public distributed ledger that is ideal
for securely and transparently tracking data, a capability
that is particularly important for the expanding cannabis
market. Paragon’s data and tracking services will be open
to all participants in the cannabis supply chain, including
growers, labs, doctors, customers, and retailers. For
example, using Paragon, a doctor could digitally certify a
patient’s prescription, which a vendor could then verify at
the point of sale. Or a batch of cannabis leaving the farm
could be digitally stamped onto the blockchain, creating an
indelible digital record of when it was harvested, shipped,
and perhaps certified by an organic certification body. All
of these components of the cannabis ecosystem present
opportunities for new businesses and economic development,
which Paragon will support and accelerate.

2. Paragon was founded by Jessica VerSteeg, an entrepreneur,
former Miss Iowa US, and reality TV star. After her ex-
boyfriend, Super Bowl champion Tyler Sash, died from an
overdose of pharmaceutical painkillers, she became a
passionate advocate of marijuana as an alternative, and
founded AuBox, an upscale marijuana delivery service in the
Bay Area.
“I thought Tyler had dementia because he heard voices and
was constantly forgetting things,” said VerSteeg. “But when
I was told it is impossible for someone his age to have
that I felt lost and had no explanation or his behavior. A
few months before our break up I realized he had an
addiction to painkillers and I blamed the depression, his
aggression and wild mood swings on the pills he was taking,
because it was all I had as a reason for every out burst or
for the days he would sleep for 13 hours. Eventually our
relationship ended because of the pills. During his time in
the NFL he asked me if he could smoke marijuana for the
pain instead of taking the painkillers the NFL doctors were
giving him because he was scared he would get addicted to
the pills and I told him no. I told him no, because I did
not want him to get randomly drug tested and possibly lose
his career over marijuana. I told him no because I thought
it was a “bad drug” and I was uneducated about the medical
side of cannabis. I told him no because I did not know an
addiction to pills was really possible, and I trusted the
NFL doctors. I kept thinking if I had just let him smoke
for his pain we never would have broken up over his
addiction to pills. I kept thinking If I had let him smoke
marijuana for his pain he never would have overdosed on
painkillers. I started AuBox to take away the “stoner”
image of cannabis and my goal in building Paragon is to
provide a structure for the cannabis industry that will
hopefully help the legalization of medical marijuana to all
states and provide necessary medical care for those who
need it.”

3. Paragon’s advisory board includes Juan Carlos Gómez,
Director of Clinical Programs at the Carlos A. Costa
Immigration and Human Rights Clinic, Paul Kim, CEO of
Xfire, and Jayceon Terrell Taylor, better known by his rap
name, The Game. The Game explained why he supports Paragon,
"This is a crucial moment for the cannabis industry. This
is its moment - legalization is happening. What Paragon is
doing is bringing cannabis up to speed with mainstream
businesses - actually not just up to speed, but bringing it
ahead of other businesses with next-generation technology."
In accordance with its mission to accelerate the cannabis
economy, Paragon will be building coworking spaces in
cities around the world. Holders of their digital token,
ParagonCoin, will be able to vote on where the coworking
spaces will be constructed. In addition to voting rights,
ParagonCoin can be used to pay for goods and services in
the coworking spaces -- anything from office space to
coffee and a donut, though it will not be used by end-users
to purchase cannabis products. ParagonOnline will be a
community platform similar to Reddit and Steemit for the
network of cannabis professionals to share knowledge.
ParagonAccelerator will be a startup accelerator for
cannabis-related businesses using ParagonCoin,
ParagonSpace, and ParagonOnline.
Paragon will sell 100 million ParagonCoins at $1 each from
September 15, 2017 to October 16, 2017. ParagonCoin will
begin trading on cryptocurrency exchanges in November 2017.
To stay up to date with Paragon’s upcoming announcements,
join their community Slack channel here.
For media inquiries, or to schedule an interview, please
contact Donald Berlin at Voyage Resources:
don(at)voyageresources(dot)com or call 303-589-5774.
About Paragon
Paragon is a distributed ledger for the marijuana industry
and supply chain. Paragon’s blockchain-backed network will

4. enable secure and transparent record-keeping for doctor
registries, marijuana IDs, and prescriptions. The protocol
can also be used to log data pertaining to cannabis
products, including time of harvest, origin, organic
status, CBD/THC content, andsustainability. CEO, Jessica
VerSteeg, is a well-known beauty queen and reality TV star
(Amazing Race). Egor Lavrov, Chief Creative Officer, is a
serial entrepreneur, who sold his first business for $2
million at the age of 16. Paragon’s team includes alumni
from Facebook, Google, Cisco, and Y-Combinator. Rapper The
Game sits on Paragon’s advisory board.