Before Martin Olive was shot at the front of his San Francisco storefront, he was vocal about the dire need for assistance to keep the California cannabis industry afloat. A beloved figure in the San Francisco cannabis community who ran the city’s oldest continually operating dispensary, the Vapor Room, Olive was shot seven times in an unprovoked attack just before 5 p.m. on January 27. Olive suffered significant injuries but, astoundingly, survived. Now, his family and friends are rallying behind him to aid in his recovery and provide financial support.
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“It’s a total miracle that he is alive,” Olive’s business partner and friend Tina Gordon said in an emotional Instagram video posted the day after the attack. “This is someone who has devoted his life and had two near-death experiences while devoting his life to this plant. He’s been trying to chart a path forward for so long.”
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Near death & taxes
Olive has faced extreme physical and financial setbacks in the past. His case involving 280E—a tax code that prohibits cannabis companies from deducting business expenses due to the plant’s status as a Schedule I substance—is studied in law school.
“In 2004, Martin Olive opened a medical marijuana dispensary, the Vapor Room Herbal Center (‘Vapor Room’), in San Francisco, California,” an article in the Harvard Law Review reads. “In addition to selling medical marijuana, the dispensary provided vaporizers, games, books, and art supplies for customers to use and also held regular activities—such as yoga classes, massages, and movie showings—all free of charge.”
When the IRS audited the Vapor Room’s 2004 and 2005 tax returns, they issued a notice of deficiency “stating that Olive was not allowed to deduct either the reported cost of goods sold or the reported business expenses, both due to lack of substantiation.” Olive petitioned the U.S. Tax Court to review the IRS’s audit determination, stating that the caregiving services “did not constitute a ‘trade or business’ since they were free and generated no profit.” Still, ultimately, the court ruled in favor of the IRS.
The Vapor Room’s next challenge involved the loss of its physical location. Following a move to a vacant video store next door spurred by a zoning change in San Francisco, the dispensary was shut down in 2012 as a part of a federal crackdown on medical cannabis. The Vapor Room reemerged as a cannabis delivery service and, in 2019, reopened in its current location in the South of Market neighborhood, this time as a storefront and cannabis consumption space open to adults under the regulations of Proposition 64 passed by California voters in 2016.
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The jump from a medical marijuana dispensary—which many people within the cannabis industry call a “legacy” business—to an adult-use legal shop has not been easy.
In the month before the shooting, Olive told SFGate the Vapor Room was at risk of going out of business. Like many companies in the current California cannabis industry, Olive said he faces a massive tax debt to the state of California. SFGate reports that the cannabis industry’s debt has reportedly grown to $1.3 billion in late taxes and penalties statewide.
“Like most small, independent cannabis businesses in California, my shop Vapor Room has been struggling in this market,” Olive wrote in a November 2024 LinkedIn post. “We’re at a crunch point now where things are looking more dire than they’ve ever been. I’ve operated Vapor Room for 25 years and while we’ve weathered some tough storms (and sailed some amazing, beautiful waters), this current storm may well sink us permanently.”
In the SFGate article, Olive expressed safety concerns about the neighborhood where his shop is located. The SF Standard reports that in the first three weeks of the year, the area near the Vapor Room—a three-block stretch of Sixth between Market and Folsom streets—had more drug arrests than anywhere else in the city.
“We’ve been beset by illicit drug sales outside in our neighborhood,” Olive said. “There’s been a real lack of support in the community. I’m sympathetic to what people are going through with addiction, but it’s made it very difficult to operate.”
The recent shooting was not the first time Olive has faced death head-on. On his Instagram page is an image of him looking at the camera through a blue aura. Within the photo’s caption, Olive explains how he suffered a brain aneurysm rupture in 2012.
“It’s not always one of those ‘life lessons’ where you thrive in the face of adversity,” Olive wrote. “Sometimes things are just hard as f*** and they suck and you’re not great at dealing with it all. And that’s okay. At times, it’s been easier to focus on my day-to-day life and forget about what happened and how it’s impacted my life. That is most easily achieved when I’m with loved ones or staying busy.”
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The farmer & the dealer
When the Vapor Room reopened in 2019, Olive partnered with Gordon, an outdoor cannabis farmer behind Moon Made Farms, based in southern Humboldt County. Moon Made became the Vapor Room’s house brand of flowers.
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Gordon is originally from San Francisco and has an infectious energy and drive for community building. Following the unprovoked attack, Olive’s friends and family raised over $100,000 in a matter of days through a GoFundMe campaign. Next, Gordon and others planned a gathering at 111 Minna Gallery to update the cannabis community on Olive’s health status.
“Martin is the reason so many of us are here,” Gordon said at the gathering. “He built something special, and we are here now because of him. Because of what he’s given to this industry, this city, and all of us.”
The shooting
“Martin was shot seven times,” Vapor Room shop manager Rose Harless said. “He was taken to the hospital in critical condition, but he survived. He is now stable, and he is expected to be released within the week. But this is not going to be an easy road. He is going to need us—financially, emotionally, physically. He is going to need this community to lift him up the same way he has lifted us up for decades.”
Gordon clarified that the incident was not an attempted robbery, and Harless said there was no known motive for the attack. The gunman had not entered the Vapor Room as a customer and did not attempt to enter before the shooting. After shooting Olive, the gunman went into his apartment next door and, hours later, died in a shootout with the police.
The community
David Hua, the CEO and co-founder of the cannabis software company Meadow, attended the community gathering to hear about Olive’s health status and learn how to help. Hua initially encountered the Vapor Room at its first location as a medical marijuana patient.
“It felt like being in Willy Wonka’s weed store,” he said. “It was such a good vibe, very neighborly.”
In 2014, the Vapor Room became one of Meadow’s first partners in its initial venture as an on-demand cannabis delivery service. Hua said Olive had been quick to help himself and others in the past, so he was not surprised to see an outpouring of support for his friend.
“The cannabis industry is tough,” Hua said. “It’s weird, the longer you’re in it, your reputation matters even more. Martin risked it all for decades and was subject to the IRS and was subject to scrutiny because he put his head up because he wanted to pay his taxes. He just wanted to do everything as right as possible but continually got, like, hammered on that. Even finding a location through Prop. 64, going through all the hoops, raising money and all that stuff, he still kept going.”
Olive has said that becoming a part of the medical cannabis movement “absolutely changed my life at a time when I needed it most.”
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“Advocating for people who couldn’t advocate for themselves, promoting the prosperity of a deeply misaligned plant and helping to provide relief of people’s suffering and pain was and still is the most rewarding aspect of working in the ‘cannabis industry’ these days,” Olive wrote in a 2019 Instagram post.
While the future of the Vapor Room remains uncertain, its place within San Francisco’s legacy of medical marijuana providers has already been written. And, as Olive continues to recover, the cannabis community is sharing stories about Olive’s devotion to two things: people and the plant.
“He was always about the flower, but also art and community and bringing people together,” Hua said. “He never got infected by the ‘Green Rush’ and the greed and all that stuff that came through. He did the work.”
*This article was submitted by a guest contributor. The author is solely responsible for the content.