Why we hosted Cannabiz (101 &) 102
Last week, we had a packed house here for Cannabiz 102. Over 30 people came to learn from our friends at Equitable Opportunities Now and Mass Recreational Consumer Council, who shared how members of our community can get in on the growing (pun not intended, but accepted) Cannabis industry in Massachusetts. As Executive Director of this organization, I have fielded a fair amount of questions about our participation in ensuring equity in the cannabis industry, and I want to take a few minutes to share why we’re committed to this important work.
What We Do
Transformative Culture Project is explicitly dedicated to using arts and culture as tools to build economic opportunity and social power where it has been systemically taken from our communities. This looks like ensuring that artists of color are paid fairly for their work. It means training young people from working class communities and youth of color to not just be the cultural creators (they always are) but to make sure they are paid for that work and are listened to about what it is trying to say. It means supporting talented creative entrepreneurs in navigating a business and finance landscape that was built without them in mind. And it means ensuring that where Black and Brown people have built the cultural capital, they have equitable access to the wealth. This is exactly why Cannabiz matters so much to me.
We Built This City on Rock and Roll- and Reggae, and Hip Hop
Former House Speaker John Boehner clarified just a few weeks ago that his thinking on cannabis has evolved- and now he’s all in. He, former MA Governor Bill Weld, and former Presidential hopeful Gary Johnson have all joined the board of Acreage Holdings, which holds cannabis business assets in 30 states. And Boehner is throwing his political clout behind an effort to deschedule the substance (which is currently illegal with comparable penalties to heroin, at the federal level). This is important, because even though some states have made recreational use and sales legal, the federal legal status can make it difficult to access business capital or navigate other hurdles. It remains to be seen if Boehner will also advocate for the hundreds of thousands of people of color who are behind bars to be released following that descheduling. Black people are 4 times as likely to be incarcerated for drug-related crimes.
Racist and anti-immigrant fears stoked the flames of marijuana prohibition, relying on fears of Mexican immigrants and Black and Black-adjacent youth culture- like Rock and Roll, to criminalize drug use. Newspapers ran sensational stories about criminal activity fueled by cannabis- with explicitly racist and anti-immigrant agendas. In 1937, it was outlawed, and in 1968, when drug schedules were created, it was placed among the most dangerous, following more racist propaganda.
At the same time, the very culture that was used to make cannabis into a bogeyman has also popularized use of the plant recreationally. From the early days of Rock and Roll, to Reggae and then Hip Hop, the cool factor associated with Black culture has been transferred to cannabis. All the while, Black and Brown people have been disproportionately incarcerated for use and sales of cannabis. And now that the social acceptance tides have turned on the plant- it is wealthy white powerful men like Boehner, Weld, and Johnson that stand to profit- off of the labor, culture, and death of predominantly Black and Brown people.
Really?
I’m going to get really nerdy for a minute here. I am a critical media literacy educator at heart, and a Hip Hop nerd, so to bring this point home, I want to share with you an excerpt from one of my favorite personal essays- Blue Magic by Jay-Z:
“ N****s wanna bring the 80s back
It’s okay with me, that’s where they made me at
Except I don’t write on the wall
I write my name in the history books,
Hustling in the hall (hustling in the hall)
Nah, I don’t spin on my head
I spin work in the pots so I can spend my bread”
Blue Magic is off of Jay-Z’s American Gangster, which he released as a semi-autobiographical record following the release of the Denzel Washington film with the same title. This track is full of history lessons about the war on drugs and the complicity of the US government, but this section stands out to me- as he draws direct comparisons between two elements of Hip Hop (more earlier in the song) and drug-dealing. He makes it clear that even before he was a rapper he was inextricably part of the culture. And without these links (and Bob Marley, Biggie Smalls, Jimi Hendrix, Mobb Deep, Big Pun and more), it’s arguable that Boehner and his ilk wouldn’t have the product they have today.
Real Life Impacts
It is notable that Boehner’s statement said he believes that the descheduling is important so that research can happen, veterans can be helped, and steps can be taken to solve the opioid crisis. This is politically safe for him. What he did not say is that descheduling would also put into question the over 500,000 marijuana possession arrests that happened just in 2016. Here at TCP, this issue hits very close to home. I grew up in a zero-tolerance neighborhood. Fears about drugs gave police license to stop and harass many of my peers. I know my whiteness protected me from that, but it didn’t change the damage to my community, which was largely Black and Puerto Rican. Living under surveillance and suspicion is no way to grow up, and the youth I work with and have worked with for the last decade and a half continue to live in heavily policed communities, warping the scales of justice. And for some of them, they get swept up into prison in this hysteria.
Our Education Manager Letia Larok has given me permission to share her story. Her partner, and father of her daughter, was arrested with a large quantity of cannabis in his possession. As a longtime activist for legalization, and a user for religious purposes, Jawara McIntosh, son of the late Peter Tosh, knew that he could be a target for law enforcement. And he turned himself in to serve his sentence in New Jersey. When Letia dropped him off at the train station, she didn’t know it would be the last time she’d see him safe. During his incarceration he was beaten into a coma, where he has remained for the last year. His three daughters and other family members visit regularly, and are hopeful despite the prognosis. They also believe he wouldn’t be where he is if not for the laws against cannabis. His father’s music helped to make cannabis profitable. His activism helped to make it legal. And his family is paying an unthinkable price for John Boehner’s change of heart (and subsequent profits).
So to wrap up…
This is why this matters to our work. The wealth that will be created by this industry has been built on the creative labor and activism of Black artists, on the lives of hundreds of thousands incarcerated out of an opportunity to take part in an industry they are experts in. It is explicitly our mission to make sure that these communities have access to that wealth, and to ensure that as this industry grows, it has a fiscal AND social responsibility to the lives and communities its prohibition has scattered in the dust. We look forward to continuing to work with others to bring information, as well as monitor the licensing process to help ensure equity and community accountability.
