Yes they are. The same way the guys were representing their company, she was representing SendGrid at the conference. You can't be an "Evangelist" at a tech conference and pretend your actions don't represent your company as well.
The parallels between the current war on drugs and the prohibition in the early XX century are staggering. Can we learn from that experience? The cost in USD and lives ruined that the war itself creates is greater than the cost of taking the profits a way from a few and running educational campaigns so people can take responsibility of what they do.
For those of us living in countries where the front line of this war is being fought, is clear we are loosing a war that is not ours, neither worth fighting. But we keep on doing it because the US "pays" for it.
Someday a future generation will look back and ask themselves how come they didn't realize it was a stupid war? were they less intelligent in those simpler times? And they will probably be right.