Episode 35: Systemic Barriers in Cannabis: Jeannette Ward’s Fight for Justice, Legalization & Racial Equity

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

cannabis, people, arrested, black, money, work, equity, folks, cannabis industry, business, legalization, state, legal, privilege, talk, conversation, license, bank, loans, run

SPEAKERS

Jeanette, Amber Cabral

Jeanette  00:00

And where we’ve seen the most success for equity with cannabis is at legalization, whether it’s at medical legalization or if you’ve already passed that point, you’ve got recreational legalization. Okay, at one of those two moments, what you want to do is get part of those cannabis taxes dedicated to reparations. You music.

Amber Cabral  00:22

Privilege is all around you. It’s useless until you recognize it. So it’s time to stop feeling guilty and figure out how to use your privilege to make an impact. Welcome to guilty privilege. Welcome to another episode of guilty privilege. Today. I had the privilege of talking to Jeanette ward. She is the CEO of new project, and we talked a lot about something that lots of us either enjoy or feel away about, and that is the cannabis industry. So whether you care about the cannabis industry or not, in this episode, you will learn why you should and some of the inequities that matter to how all of us experience our day to day. Thank you for joining me, Jeanette, thanks

Jeanette  01:00

for having me.

Amber Cabral  01:01

Hey, Jeanette, hi Amber. I am so happy you’re here. Thank

Jeanette  01:04

you for having me.

Amber Cabral  01:05

So let me tell you why I’m happy you’re here. I think that the conversation that we are going to have is a conversation that people are nervous about. I think that we are in a place in this country where any discussion about cannabis can go one of two ways. People get really excited, or they clam up. And I think that we are also in a place where the discussion about how we impact businesses financially is a very present one, but sometimes we get a little dicey when it’s about a thing that has been previously told to us to be bad. And so I’m happy to have you here because I know that you’re gonna bring some light to a conversation that for many people might be a little uncomfortable, so maybe they’ll open their minds a bit after we’re done. Great, yeah, let’s

Jeanette  01:46

have that conversation Exactly.

Amber Cabral  01:48

So let’s start first by Can you just tell me what you do, who you are, and what you

Jeanette  01:52

do? Yeah, yeah. So I’m running a nonprofit called new project, and we provide financial assistance, mainly grants and loans to black, brown, female owned cannabis businesses. So businesses operating in the legal cannabis industry.

Amber Cabral  02:07

How? How did you How can I? Can I get a little backstory about how you came to operate in the cannabis industry, and then I wanted to ask you about how you decided to serve who you’re serving. Yeah, okay,

Jeanette  02:19

good, that’s good. So let’s start with the cannabis industry. So I got there first, coming from Coca Cola UPS Home Depot. I had a corporate career that, you know, sometimes I think I was crazy to leave it, but I did. I did. And I left because I really wanted to kind of run my own marketing shop, run my own communications department, and going to this smaller company was going to give me the opportunity to do that. It just so happened to be a cannabis company. Okay? I also left because that cannabis company was being run by my cousin. Oh, and I wanted to make an impact that didn’t just, you know, line Warren Buffett’s pockets, the primary shareholder of Coca Cola. I wanted to make an impact that would matter to someone I cared about. So I went to work, essentially for her and her company, and as a technology company serving the cannabis industry, and eventually we took it public. It was a pretty exciting little ride, and it introduced me to the cannabis industry. Okay,

Amber Cabral  03:16

so I’m curious about the transition from corporate to cannabis. Can you give me a little bit of an insight into what that was like, like? I imagine, I imagine that potentially, you could have prompted a little bit of churn. I’m just curious, you know, what was your experience in making that decision? Yeah,

Jeanette  03:36

so it was really thinking about my values and what I cared about and how I wanted to spend my time. And again, thinking about, what could I do to kind of serve this small business and this woman owned company versus working for the machine that is a company like Coca Cola. So that was part of it. And I really wasn’t thinking about cannabis in any way other than adults should be able to do what adults want to do, correct. But then I got to the industry and realized what incredible medicine cannabis is, and I also started connect the dots between cannabis criminalization and who that hurt and cannabis legalization and who that’s profiting. And you know, those dots aren’t connecting, right? So I wanted to do something about that.

Amber Cabral  04:16

Okay, and so let’s talk a little bit about that. Who did you notice? I know the answer to this, but who did you notice was impacted? Why did that, you know? Why did that spark a little bit of fire in terms of you moving forward with your vision? Yeah.

Jeanette  04:30

So when I came to the cannabis industry with the first things I did is went to this big conference that they have. It’s the biggest of the year marijuana business. Daily. It’s down in Vegas. It’s huge. And so it’s a really good way to see kind of the industry all at once. Oh, wow. Okay, and surprised at how white the industry was. Small business owners tend to be more owners of color than than you see in corporate America. Corporate America tends to be very white, unfortunately. And then small businesses tend to get more diverse. And these were small business owners, and it wasn’t more diverse. First, oh, that was my first bell ringing. Yeah. Why is this still so white? And then just my own personal experience having been arrested for a cannabis related charge, and having family members arrested for cannabis charges, and just the, I mean, the list of people I know arrested for cannabis is too long, and we’re all black, and to see that as a country, we’re changing our mind, if you will, about this plant, and deciding it can be legal and it can be commoditized, and we can bring in a lot of tax money off this product, and people are going to get legally rich off this product. And, you know, build generational wealth, and those are beautiful things. But for black folks, to not be a part of that and to not benefit from the economic wealth that was generating, just didn’t it didn’t feel right.

Amber Cabral  05:48

Yeah, yeah. So how did you come to in my mind, it’s probably difficult to identify where to start, like I wouldn’t even know if I were to decide I wanted to explore getting a small business started in the cannabis industry. I wouldn’t even know where to begin. And I have a cousin who actually invested, you know, in a couple of cannabis which she attempted to but what happened is, I guess there was all this money they had to put into, like, file for licensing, and you have to wait to see if you get the license. And I was like, but where do you what happens to your money in the meantime, it’s just like sitting there. So, like, I would even begin to know what to do or where to start. So can you talk a little bit about just, like, where, where. Where did you begin to say, Okay, people need help in this way, you know, to be able to do this. How did you get visibility to that? Yeah,

Jeanette  06:45

so when I got there and was just like, incensed, yeah, that black folks had their wealth drained because of Kamloops, exactly. And so we need to be a part of the story of building wealth for ourselves, right? And legalization, just being incensed about that, I looked around and said, Does anyone else care. And there was already an organization that was working on minorities in cannabis. And I’m, I’m a joiner. There’s already a movement. I’m going to go put on my boots and say, How can I help? So I helped by joining that organization. And then a bunch of like minds were thinking and talking and working through, you know, what do we need to do to see more people of color see more black people in particular, benefit from the cannabis industry and be owners. What you shared about your cousin is a really important point about cannabis. It’s very, very expensive to start my mind, incredibly expensive in the state of Pennsylvania, you had to have 250,000 liquid in order to qualify for a license. That’s what she

Amber Cabral  07:40

was saying. It was saying. It was like $100,000 just to get this license even put into the pool. So

Jeanette  07:45

that starts to lock out whole communities. Yes, have access to that kind of wealth. And yeah, that is a hurdle that makes it very difficult for for us to be in the industry. So what can we do about that? How to help?

Amber Cabral  08:00

How do, where does the money go? Like, what is the purpose of this license experience being this expensive? I mean, I mean, aside from keeping people out, because, I mean, it is giving, I want to intentionally block people, so I am going to make this inaccessible. But what does, where does the money go? It’s giving

Jeanette  08:16

that. And it is that, yeah, and the thought process behind that is, you know, good old boys will take care of good old Absolutely. Florida was a really good example of that. They only gave licenses to people who had owned a nursery, like a plant nursery, right? But they had to have owned it for 25 years in the State of Florida. But how would you Who’s that? So we drew a small circle around exactly who we wanted to get a license, exactly. So this is from state to state to state. They’re setting up in a lot of these states, these laws that are drawing these tiny circles around who can qualify for a cannabis license and someone who’s I mean, the truth is, they are intentionally locking out communities. They’re intentionally saying, even if it’s not about locking out a community, it’s about saying only these people are going to be able to take advantage of this right, new opportunity. How?

Amber Cabral  09:01

How? What do you do? So, if I, when, so your company, if I were, you know, small, black, owned, you know, business, want, wanting to get into the cannabis, you know, business, I come to you for help. I’m assuming it might be for help with, how do I get the money for this licensing? What? What steps, what happens from there.

Jeanette  09:20

It’s a good question. The honest answer is, I tell you, are you sure? Okay? Really think about it. Okay, it’s incredibly expensive to start a cannabis business, and all businesses have the potential to fail. So how much money are you willing to put in and potentially lose? Yeah, so that’s just an important question to ask yourself. Cannabis is also incredibly hard, just because most companies won’t work with you. So you can’t have a bank, so you got cash, and you’ve got to figure out how to, wow, you can’t have a bank. Can’t have a bank. So you, I mean, it’s, it’s in, it’s, we’ll say more about that. Being unbanked is a real headache, and there’s Why can’t you have a bank, because it’s federally illegal, so you can’t owe. Open A you can’t open your cannabis business and go get a get a business bank account. They will give you one, and your personal bank accounts will get shut down if they find out that you have a cannabis business. So I know many people whose personal bank accounts were also most will get shut down eventually, because of cannabis. Lost my fingers Well, sparkle. Never knows what I’m up to. It’s it’s dicey. And then so many other things are, no, we won’t work with you. No, we can’t help you. No, you can’t get this service because we don’t work with cannabis businesses, from paying your employees to trying to file your taxes. I mean, just there’s so many

Amber Cabral  10:33

cannabis is also CBD, so it’s not just THC products, and

Jeanette  10:37

they won’t work with CBD either. So if you tell your bank your CBD, and you try to say, but it’s federally legal, the bank still won’t touch you. The rules just aren’t clear enough, and banks don’t want to take the risk. So I would tell you, if you said I want to start a cannabis business, I would say, Are you sure? Okay, is this the only thing you can do to reach happiness, right?

Amber Cabral  10:55

Right? And I say, Yes, I’m sure. What’s the next step? Like, how do I tap into the money? Like, well, how do you do how do you make those decisions? Like, I hope you’re enjoying today’s episode, and if you happen to also be looking for tools to help you navigate tough conversations, to be able to show up as a more impactful ally, or just to have resources about how to navigate equity in your world. I’ve written two books. My first book is called allies and advocates, and this book is really focused on helping you show up as a more impactful ally. It has actual tactics and tips and things that you can practice to help you get there, both for yourself and for others. My second book is called say more about that. Now say more about that is more about helping you to speak up, to push back, to challenge, to be able to have those conversations that sometimes get a little bit difficult. And in fact, I’ve given you actual scripts to help you to be able to do that. So if you’re interested in just having a few extra resources in your pocket to be able to help you to navigate any of those things, you can go pick up those books anywhere where you buy books, or you can pop down into the show notes and click the links and buy them there. Back to the episode, first thing I would tell

Jeanette  11:58

you to do is move to a state where it’s cheaper to start. Okay, so you’re not gonna start in Florida. You’re not Florida, you’re not gonna start in Pennsylvania. You’re probably not gonna start in New York. Okay, gonna move to Oregon or Arizona or New Mexico. You’re gonna start in a state where it’s cheaper to get started. Okay, I would also tell you to go to a new state where they’re just handing out licenses, like Alabama or Louisiana, so that you again, you can get in when it’s still new, when the big money hasn’t quite showed up yet, okay? And as many numbers as they will as the market matures. So you know, it’s you’ve got to be willing to go all in. It’s not like a barbershop. I can’t just start it in my city. Yeah, it’s got to be legal in your city and in your county and in your state. And you want to find a place where they’re not going to say you need $100,000 sitting in the bank. So where is it cheaper to start a business, and where are the regulations cheaper? So I would tell you, let’s start the research and figure out where you can afford to start it, and then how much money you’re going to fundraise to

Amber Cabral  12:50

get there. So I can fundraise. But how do you fundraise? Because websites usually put the funds in a bank, right? How do you fundraise? Also, if I’m using, I don’t know, like a fundraising site that may also say you can, you won’t be

Jeanette  13:09

able to use a fundraiser okay, you can’t use a fundraising site. Okay, okay. No, no, you’re gonna have to find an investor who invests in cannabis. You guys had ceviche Wilson on who was talking about, yeah, you know, making sure an investor is deploying clap capital at this time, yes, is invested in a business like yours, you’re gonna want to do the same. Who invest in cannabis? Yeah, and then, and then go find them and do the same hard work that everyone else has to do get to get funding. Wow, yeah.

Amber Cabral  13:37

I have a very good friend who started a tea company, CBD, amazing product. And now that you’re saying it, I remember her saying that she kept getting I asked, what happened? Why haven’t you know what’s up with the website? She was like, we can’t find anybody that will process payments for us. No, no, and that’s what it is. Yeah, wow.

Jeanette  13:57

It’s just, it’s, it’s,

Amber Cabral  14:00

so the federally illegal thing is a huge obstacle, even though it’s legal state that’s in massive and it’s generating money,

Jeanette  14:09

it is, it is, but folks aren’t making money. So that is the key difference. Okay, let’s talk about people are, you know, recording sales, and they’re paying lots of taxes, but you’re not profitable because of the cost of regulations being so high. When I say cost of regulation, ships have security cameras and steel doors and vaults on vaults on vaults. Wow, there’s this scare about cannabis and it getting into the illicit market, and so there’s a lot of security, and you have to have this tracking system that tracks the product from seed to sale, and all that gets expensive. It’s business cost. A typical business doesn’t have Right? So there’s that. And then there’s something called 280 I won’t get too technical, but you can’t do business taxes and take deductions the way you can with other businesses. So the bottom line is, most folks aren’t profitable. And so that’s the last thing I want people to know. If you’re doing this to make money, don’t because you. Want for many, many What’s

Amber Cabral  15:01

the incentive? Why are you still doing this?

Jeanette  15:06

Tell me. Why am I doing I’m doing it because the work that I’m doing in cannabis is allowing me I would never be able to do loans. I don’t think if I weren’t doing cannabis loans, the lending industry would be probably pretty difficult for me to break into. Okay, no finance background, right? Needless to say, no lending, no banking background. So where can I do loans cannabis? And I’m only doing them because that’s what the entrepreneurs need. What did Black people need to start businesses? They needed money, so I kind of got there by this is the solution, yeah. And then I’m still doing it, because I’m learning about how to do loans outside of the traditional framework that relies on capital, relies on you to have collateral and a credit score. We’ve learned, Bernice King called it junk science. We’ve learned that credit scores are junk science that are again about locking people out of getting access to capital. So I’m working on what a loans look like when we’re doing our underwriting and our evaluating based on character, based on future business projections, not based on your credit score or how much cash you can already bring to the table. And that is the work, I think is really important that we’re doing. Eventually, any bank on the corner will lend to a cannabis business, but what banks aren’t figuring out is how to lend to black people, how to lend women, absolutely, and that’s what we’re working on. Okay, so

Amber Cabral  16:18

you’re almost like you’re doing the work that you’re doing now for the moment, but also for the moment that’s to come absolutely right? Because with awareness that as each state kind of comes up with their version of decriminalization, or, you know, deciding to legalize, yeah, we are kind of seeing these expansion we’ll get

Jeanette  16:34

to federal legalization one day. Yeah, yeah. How?

Amber Cabral  16:37

How close do you think we are to that? If you were guessing, I

Jeanette  16:40

think Biden’s gonna reschedule. So there’s some talk that Biden’s gonna reschedule, which is gonna mean that cannabis is gonna look like a pharmaceutical okay. It’ll be allowable for folks. The hurdles will actually get higher, because the DEA will say this is what it takes to manufacture, essentially, this pharmaceutical grade product. Okay, so that’s not great for a small business owner, but it does mean federal legalization, which for existing business owners would be very helpful. Okay, you’re trying to enter once the DEA reschedules, I would say, as a small business owner, you lost your window. If this is the thing you were dying to do, do it now.

Amber Cabral  17:18

Don’t wait. Wow. So if this is the thing you are dying to do, do it now, and also you’re going to pay a lot. You are and you are not going to profit

Jeanette  17:25

a lot. You’re not, not for a while. Okay, for a while.

Amber Cabral  17:29

Wow. Okay, so why are, why are people doing?

Jeanette  17:32

I can’t talk them out of it. You can’t talk people out of their dreams. I’ve

Amber Cabral  17:38

learned. I mean, one of my questions was going to be, why there’s so few black owned cannabis businesses. And I’m like, Well, you’ve answered that. Like, it’s, it’s, it’s cost prohibitive, yes, it’s also incredibly challenging, unless you get in in a specific location at just the right time. Yeah, you cannot have a bank. No, and yes, you’re right. Being unbanked is, I mean, like, deteriorating, right? I mean, wow, you’ve, you’ve dropped a lot on me in a very, very quick succession. I I’m processing. So, when I so, you know, I’m in Vegas, you know, cannabis is legal. I go and, you know, I pop over to Planet 13, and I pick me up a couple, you know, familiar things. I’m gonna get some CBD edibles for sleep. I’m gonna maybe get me, I don’t know, a soda or some kind of share with some friends before we go to a concert, right? And when I’m doing that, I am literally put, oh man, I have so many questions. It’s like, I can branch this in three different directions. So when I’m doing that, I’m literally putting myself in a position where I’m doing something that is federally illegal but is legal in the state, and I am likely engaging with a business that is unbanked, yeah. So local credit union, they might Okay, so a local, okay? I was like, how and people carry

Jeanette  19:03

around cash. They have cash and saves, they pay, they take bags of cash to pay their rent. I mean that yeah, is happening, yeah, yeah. But then, if you get lucky, you might get a local credit union that’ll take

Amber Cabral  19:14

you. So that may explain. I know that when you go to places like that, they do this weird thing where it’s like, they round it up and they give you, like, some change back. Is that, because, if they

Jeanette  19:22

run your credit card, it’s because they’re really running an ATM transaction. They’re not actually doing a credit card. So it

Amber Cabral  19:29

has to be a round number or something that explains so many things. Okay? So just curious, you know, in the circumstance that you know, we see all of the, you know, the Federal legalization take place, the folks that are in position that you’ve, you know, helped secure funds to be, you know, able to run their businesses. What, what are the, what are the profit predictions? Like, I mean, are there any like, I’m imagining that people are, to your point, kind of trying to get in now, for. Reason? Yeah,

Jeanette  20:00

I mean, it will be profitable. Yeah, it’s a business that will be profitable when you can make business deductions, when things you know, settle out in terms of you get charged now, you know, extra you get charged double on rent because your cannabis business is federally legal. So those things will all settle and folks will make money. And you know, most people’s most people have an exit plan with their business. And most people’s exit plan is to build a brand they can sell, making an assumption that, you know, companies will will just buy the brands, and you build yourself a beautiful brand with the following, and you’ll get bought, and you’ll be able

Amber Cabral  20:35

to exit that way. Yeah, yeah. So most people hope so. You talked a little bit about having seen in your own experience as well. Of, you know, seeing people impacted by cannabis and seeing, you know, criminalization. And so I would love to hear a little bit about, you know, how, how you’ve seen maybe some of that shift? Have you seen some of that shift? I know there’s been a lot of conversation about people being released from certain charges in certain places. And I, you know, you and I have had a little bit of conversation about you saying, like, yeah, you know, I would prefer to help the people that were impacted. Can you talk a little bit about, like, some of the shift that maybe you have seen in the time that we’re in this, I don’t know, awkward, it’s legal, but it’s not phase.

Jeanette  21:16

We haven’t seen enough shift. And the cannabis industry, especially the legalization movement, state by state, has led a lot with justice and equity as why we should legalize. The ACLU did a they’ve done two studies now 10 years apart, that show that black folks and just black full stop, have been arrested at almost four times the rate of white folks and other races and ethnicities, despite the fact that health studies show over and over folks consume at same rates. Yeah, we’re not consuming more than other groups, we’re not selling cannabis more than other groups, and yet we’re arrested at four times the rate of other groups. And that is really woven into the fabric of our criminal justice system, and it’s hard to unwind. Yeah, it’s someone’s first arrest. It’s someone’s return to prison. They were out on parole. It’s the cannabis related charge. I got really arrested with someone who was arrested for driving under the influence. I think they found a roach on him. Then I got arrested too, and charged with something, mainly so they could just bring me back and strip search me, then I now had a charge I’ve got to deal with, and there’s just, there’s so many layers, and there’s such a web that cannabis criminalization, a negative one, has woven for Black communities, and is such a central part of policing and how the system has continued and how much money the system makes, 43% of drug arrests or cannabis arrests, what? Yeah, it’s insane. So it’s insane. 43% Yeah, and it continues, even as we’ve legalized, what we’ve seen is states that haven’t legalized have doubled down on their arrests, so they’re making up for the legal states. So, oh, that’s what the ACLU has shown us. While the legal states have lowered their arrests, the not the illegal states, have lowered their word. Now cannabis is legal, right? Show the ACLU shows they’re arresting fewer people, fewer black people, as a result. But then other states are doubling down. Alabama’s double down, and Mississippi’s doubled down, in Georgia has doubled down, and they’re doing more arrests, because the system, yeah, just the system, just as a cycle, and it just feeds itself. And so I you asked, like, what have I seen for a while? Was really hopeful. These legalization efforts led with equity and justice and and then, and then the system is really big and really powerful, and these grooves it has worn are hard for people to get, to get out of. I mean, they’re not. I mean, cannabis is legal in states, and people are sitting in jail for right, like that does. What

Amber Cabral  23:58

does that conversation look like? What needs to happen? How do you like if I’m in a, if I’m in a Vegas, you know, you know, I’m in Nevada, like, but I’m in jail for how? Where does that conversation start? What do you I don’t even know what to what to get behind. I guess. Hey there. I hope you’re enjoying the episode. And, in fact, if you are, you can bring me to your organization or event to help you bring conversations like this to life in your workspaces. This is something I do for a living. I do coaching, I do training, I do executive consulting, whatever it is that you might need as it relates to trying to figure out how to activate allyship or equity in your space. It’s probably something I can support. So if you’re interested in how we can work together, you can reach out to me@cabraco.com or pop down into the show notes and click the link book a discovery call, and we will chat with you soon. Back to the show.

Jeanette  24:47

The law enforcement folks aren’t you know, they hide behind a lot of bullshit, and it’s the layers of peeling back that bullshit is very difficult. Oh, it’s about data, and it’s about being able to identify. Who should be free and who isn’t? It’s about victims restitution, and we might have default with victims, and there’s always something and it just lobbying, just becomes very hard and very difficult to change a system that really, really relies on cannabis arrests, right in a way to work. I mean, really relies on it. Brianna Taylor, there was marijuana on there, on their, you know, search warrant there, and that was part of the war on drugs. No knock search warrants was one of the tactics of the war on drugs. I mean, that it’s dismantling the work that the war on drugs did is, is really big, yeah. And, you know, for a second there, I thought we might get somewhere with defunding the police. But it went off the rails really fast, yeah,

Amber Cabral  25:43

so I’m curious, you know, in your opinion, or just your recommendation, like, if I want to, you know, at this point, you know, if I am consuming, I feel like I need to be very thoughtful about where I buy, right? Because I, you know, I imagine, like supporting a, you know, black owned cannabis place is important, and you know, that would help, perhaps, at least have people survive while we’re waiting on this legalization to happen by black. Yeah. But in addition to that, like, what else could I do to, like, to, I don’t know, to help the movement, to help create the circumstances that, well, first and foremost, help shift the legislation so that, like this war on drugs that has a lot of people locked up for things that were not to actually, you know, real criminal acts in a lot of ways. What? What? What should I be doing with my time, my dollars, whatever? And does it change depending on where I’m at

Jeanette  26:37

there? Yes, if you care about this issue, a lot, I would tell you to get involved with MPP Marijuana Policy Project, okay? And students were Sensible Drug Policy. Okay? Those two organizations are in every state, okay? And the last one is normal, which is N, O, R, M, L, but MPP and SSDP are my personal favorites, just in terms of really being focused on racial equity and that being a little bit more honest and authentic, yeah, to those two orgs, and then go be loud, not enough black. It’s a luxury to lobby and to be part of the whistle system. So that, for me, is something I don’t take for granted, because it’s a lot of time. Yeah, people don’t have time to go get involved in politics. Oh yeah. I mean, it’s, it’s incredibly time consuming. But if you can go join one of these orgs, go to their monthly meetings and just be a pain in the ass about who you are and that black people are here, and we are not going to let you forget who was hurt the most by criminalization, and we don’t plan to let this train leave the station without being on it.

Amber Cabral  27:39

Okay, so go and be loud. Look into these two organizations. Anything else I

27:44

should be doing?

Amber Cabral  27:46

I feel like this is a, I mean, even thinking about, you know, is there something I should be saying and doing about the folks that are still locked up for this? Like, do you have any thoughts or recommendation even in that direction? Because it does seem, it seems absolutely absurd to me that we’re having conversations about people still being in jail about a thing we are making money from, yeah, or planning to make money from,

Jeanette  28:04

is absurd. There’s some law projects that are working on it. None of the names are coming to me right now. The one that Sean King is really involved in, it’s not coming to me right now. But there are some, some like legal groups, who do some work on it. Okay? Um, yeah. I mean, it’s not, it comes and goes. There’ll be moments when it’ll be really hot topic, and then there’ll be moments when it’s not, okay. Doesn’t seem like a hot topic, right now,

Amber Cabral  28:33

it doesn’t. I mean, we’ve got lots of other inequitable discussions happening because we’re, you know, you know, a war zone has happening. We’re having conversations about an upcoming election and how that’s going to pan out. And I think that we are pretty preoccupied with diversity as a whole. At the moment, we are right. This is, in fact, a diversity issue.

Jeanette  28:53

People are attacking diversity, right and left, yeah, local people and yeah, exactly, yeah.

Amber Cabral  28:59

So I think that you’re right. It’s not something that’s prioritized. And I also think, if you even pay attention to, like, some of the things that are going through the supreme court right now, like, the focus is very clearly on, you know, trying to kind of clamp down who has power, who has a say, who gets access? You know, how we can indirectly, very similar to what you’re talking about with the cost of getting into the cannabis interview, how can we indirectly keep people away from being able to do things? And so I’m sure it’ll circle its way back around, given the way things are going now, to a degree, yeah. To

Jeanette  29:32

a degree, yeah. One of the things that cannabis got caught up in was the 14th Amendment, and the Republicans and conservatives have been very litigious about the 14th Amendment. So in terms of racial equity, some moves have been made to try to identify, Okay, we’re going to reserve these loan funds for black folks, or we’re going to, okay, gosh, it’s not coming to me. Ariana, what’s her last name, I don’t remember, is being sued because they’ve got the fearless fund.

Amber Cabral  29:57

Oh yes, women, I’ve.

Jeanette  29:59

Absolutely And so, and they’re being sued, and because they are these Republican conservative groups who are looking for they’re

Amber Cabral  30:05

really targeting things that are focused on black and brown people. And so one of the things cannabis

Jeanette  30:09

got hit with is that these social they were called social equity laws, states were writing laws in an attempt to say, Okay, we were locking people out of these cannabis licenses. So how do we open things up and try to ensure that we’ve got some some people of color who access these licenses. And so they created this category called social equity licenses, and they were intended to benefit black people, but because of 14th Amendment and the way these Republicans are doing these lawsuits, folks are afraid to say that it’s for black people, or that it’s for people of a certain color. So they end up writing these social equity laws about zip codes, like if you lived at a certain zip code, or if you had a family member who was arrested, and by the time they were done, everybody qualified. And it didn’t end up being, you know, only for the people who had been the ones most impacted. And then that also started to make the movement lose steam when, you know, states were unwilling to write these laws because they thought they were going to get sued. And they did get sued. I mean, the lawsuits did happen. And there’s a lawsuit in Massachusetts, for example, so they were, it’s, it’s, there’s really a move against dei and against racial equity. Oh, absolutely. In Canada, I

Amber Cabral  31:19

am living it up in it. Yeah, I don’t think I had an awareness of the degree to which cannabis was caught up in it. But, like, I mean, yeah, like, I am, you know, because I work in equity, right? Like, that’s my job. So I’m, I’m seeing it every day. I have people that reach out to me, like, Is your job, okay? And I’m like, I mean, people talking about it. So, you know, means there’s work to be done, you know. So it definitely is, but I definitely hadn’t considered, you know, cannabis being caught up in it, even though, I mean, obviously I have awareness of, like, just the framing of what has put a lot of people in jail, and how that is inequitable, and that, you know, we have definitely not released enough people for us to be able to walk into a store casually and, you know, purchase and consume in several states at this point. But I definitely hadn’t even thought about the impact on just the way the legislation is being written, and how people get access to funding and all of that. Okay, so you got you have to this is tough news. Jeanette, you’re giving me some tough news. Like, I really didn’t know what I was getting into with this conversation. Being honest, I really wanted to have a conversation specifically about the cannabis industry, because I know that it is an equity matter, yes. And then the goal of this podcast is to help people understand that, you know, privilege and equity and all those things are things that touch your everyday life, and they do touch some topics that we get a little squirrely about, and I like to make sure that people give visibility to that, but I did not expect that you were gonna lay this on me, this heavy, okay, so like, if you had a spec, a small bright spot? Yeah, what would the bright spot? I’ll

Jeanette  32:43

tell you what it is. So we talked about where money making, yeah, where cannabis is making money is for states. Oregon is a state that I just left, so I know their numbers. The best 300 100 $50 million a year. Give you the annual number in taxes. 100 50 million and that’s new money. So wow, the industry’s legal. $750 million is a lot of money. It is. It’s not. It is. State budgets are big. State budgets are big. But 150 million is not to be stat. And so where the bright spot is, and where we’ve seen the most success for equity with cannabis, is at legalization, whether it’s at medical legalization or if you’ve already passed that point you’ve got recreational legalization. Okay? At one of those two moments, what you want to do is get part of those cannabis taxes dedicated to reparations. In Illinois, they flat out called it that. Oh, bless them. I love that. Yes, other states have been too afraid to name it that. Yeah, but that’s what what we did in Oregon is grab some money to say this is for building generational wealth for the communities are at the bottom of the wealth spectrum, and that is black people. So again, we’re not able to say this for black people. So we said this is for the communities at the bottom of the wealth spectrum in Oregon. Data says that is black people, right? And taking a portion of those taxes. Taking a portion of tax money and saying this every, every time 10% 20% 50% New York did the same. They set aside a portion of taxes is going to go to the communities most harmed by the war on Okay? In Illinois, they put it towards schools. They put it towards so many beautiful things, yeah, for black communities and that, that is the bright spot. So forget whether you ever open a cannabis business or not, if we can grab because our communities have been under invested Absolutely, our schools, our health care, roads, like all the things, our lights

Amber Cabral  34:30

got safe, and it’s always painted like it’s our fault, but it’s not. It’s not intentional.

Jeanette  34:36

And this is an opportunity to say, okay, stop, right, and we’re going to take some of this tax money that’s brand new, and when tax when tax money is new, that’s the moment, once someone’s started using it, once it’s in their budget, buying pencils, yeah, whatnot, yeah, right. It’s when it’s brand new. So go advocate for that money to go to what your black community needs the most. Okay,

Amber Cabral  34:57

okay, all right. I love that. Like that’s helpful. Cool. All right, so project the podcast is called guilty privilege. The reason I called it that is because what I really wanted is for people to understand privilege differently than I think most of us do. A lot of people hear privilege and get uncomfortable or feel like they don’t have any, or get defensive, or they try to hide their privilege, and really honestly, like privilege actually opens a lot of doors. It builds a lot of connections. It can change the world if we use it responsibly. And so I always ask this question, which is, what is one privilege that you have that you refuse to feel guilty about?

Jeanette  35:30

Yeah, I think it is actually working in the political system and lobbying and advocating. I’ve been a citizen advocate. I’ve been someone who said, you know, I just political system is really broken, yeah, in this country, and but the dream of it, the ideal of it, that you can just be a citizen and you can advocate and you can change laws, is a lovely idea. And I try to hold, hold the system accountable, and show up and lobby and be an activist, and that takes a lot of time. Yeah, and I’ve spent a lot of time pondering who has the time to do this. Who has the time? It’s not most of us. It isn’t who has the time to run. Who has the time? I was just why our senators and our representatives don’t end up looking like us, representing us. They tend to be wealthy people with time on their hands exactly, rather than the average person who’s dealing with real life issues, who has a point of view of, I’ve lived this, yeah, I am able to be a citizen advocate as someone who’s lived this. So while you’re legislating from a place of, I read about it, or someone gave me, you know, a briefing about it, right? I can tell you I’ve lived this. I’ve lived What does drug addiction look like. I’ve lived What does arrest and repeated arrest and police intervention in your life look like? Yeah, and I’m able to talk about that and work and have a passion for that, and spend time on that, and spending time on that, I realize is a privilege and a luxury, and I’m so glad to be able to do it for those who can’t, who don’t have the time.

Amber Cabral  37:01

I am so glad you’re doing it, too. Thank you so much for Thank you. All right, this was a great conversation. Thanks for joining me,

Jeanette  37:07

or thank you for having me. All right. Thanks so much. You.