Black cannabis business executives address racism in the industry

What have you had to do from a business standpoint to overcome barriers posed by racism in both the industry and your supply chain?

Even though I had been involved in the industry since 2014, doing due diligence to cultivate relationships and learning from those experienced in the industry, it was not easy at all to convince these guys I could be successful in a cannabis business.

While several mentored me, they were reluctant to back me financially after I created the opportunity for more licenses to be awarded in DC because of “unintentional discrimination.”

The largest hurdle for me was to find sound investors to back my quest to obtain a license in the District of Columbia with me retaining 100% ownership.

While there was a lot of interest, many of the interested investors were demanding an unusual amount of secured notes, such as my home, personal properties, overwhelming control of management and high percentages of equity ownership.

This was definitely because of my skin color and being a woman. I know of white male licensees who received all the funds they needed for their businesses through unsecured loans.

Lack of capitalization has been a hurdle for minorities throughout the country.

Legally licensed medical cannabis dispensaries in DC must purchase all our supply from one of the legally licensed cultivators in our city.

In our local supply chain, I have not experienced any racism. We are a small industry in DC with only 15 medical licenses: eight cultivator licenses and seven dispensary licenses.

We are, perhaps, one of the most diverse groups of any other state on the retail side with four of the seven licensees being minorities. Of the eight cultivators, only one is a minority.

We are a very close and extremely collegial group working together on many factors to improve and simplify the access of medical marijuana for our patients.

How pervasive of a problem do you think racism is in the legal marijuana industry?

Absolutely I know people of color experiencing the very same issues.

I am very involved in the industry, serving on the executive committee of the Cannabis Trade Federation and chairing the CTF Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Task Force; chairing the DC Medical Cannabis Trade Association; and a former board member of the Minority Cannabis Business Association.

Many of my colleagues who are minorities have experienced extreme racism through the award process being tainted in some states, through political wrangling in some of the states as well as not being treated as respectable entrepreneurs.

Regrettably, this is the norm in the industry for people of color, which automatically disqualifies many from getting in the industry.

It is widespread. But there is hope.

The larger industry multistate operators (MSOs) are taking notice and are actively creating various tools, resources, and financial support to diversify the industry.

You see, people of color do not have generational wealth.

People of color don’t have the connections/access of family picking up the phone and telling their buddies to invest in their ventures or their sons or daughters’ ventures.

I am more optimistic than I have been because cities like Oakland, California, and states like Illinois and Massachusetts have initiated and enacted regulations and opportunities to level the playing field in cannabis.

Besides inequity and racism with licenses, it’s the same if a minority has an ancillary business in the cannabis industry.

The contracts go to “who they know,” disallowing operating businesses such as accounting, marketing, security, architects, legal and compliance to even get a foot in the door.

Minorities in the C-suite are nonexistent.

In the entire country, you can probably count minorities in the C-Suite of cannabis companies on one hand.

Minorities in management of cannabis companies is absent.