Our #CannabisUnfiltered Was Amazing!
Last night, we held our first Cannabis Unfiltered: Feminized featuring Sonia Espinosa of the Massachusetts Recreational Consumer Council. Sonia is the co-founder of the MRCC and a Cannabis activist and entrepreneur.
We loved that it was nearly all women of color who came out to Dudley Dough for the event!
Our president Malia Lazu introduced the crowd to the purpose of Cannabis Unfiltered, our new quarterly series aimed at reducing silos in the Cannabis Industry. Women of color are already disproportionately disenfranchised, especially when it comes to the entrepreneurial sector. “Our goal is,” Malia pointed out, “to bring all of you ladies together in a way that allows you to grow, network and learn from eachother”.
In a Q & A style session, Sonia revealed her background in Cannabis and how she got involved in entrepreneurship, activism and more.
“In college I focused a lot on undocumented populations and how they functioned economically,” she said. “It’s interesting, undocumented people are really similar to marijuana because of two things; they’re both commodities and they both have a really long history of being stigmatized. But while one — weed — is slowly becoming legal, the other one remains illegal.”
After sharing how she became involved in activism, Sonia became a source of knowledge pertaining to retail licenses, entrepreneurship and Marijuana legislation.
“These are our laws. The government works for us. We need to make sure that the laws serve us,” Sonia pointed out when someone asked about activism.
We then moved into the changes to the Marijuana laws. “You can grow up to 6 plants on your property,” Sonia reminded the audience. “But only 12 per household.”
We had some other amazing activists and entrepreneurs from the Cannabis industry join us at our event including and not limited to Shaleen Title from the THC Staffing Group, Shanel Lindsay of Ardent, Kamani Jefferson of MRCC, Ethan Vogt of HomeGrown Boston and many many more.
Shanel and Shaleen, both women of color in the industry, joined Sonia on stage to talk about the fight and the road that’s left when it comes to making sure everyone is able to access the benefits of the burgeoning Cannabis industry. “There were some bad changes that they wanted to make to the laws,” Shaleen told the audience. “And we stood up and said, ‘No, absolutely not’. And it worked. We have to show up and make our voices heard”.
After the informational session ended, we networked, talked and had pizza provided by Dudley Dough. The Cannabis Community Care and Research Network brought samples of their amazing soil as well for guests who grow to take and use in their endeavors.
Thank you so much for everyone who came out!
