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In Case You Missed It: The Root — Pioneer Wanda James, 1st Black Woman to Own a Marijuana Dispensary, Gets Real


Wanda James, CEO of Denver-based cannabis dispensary Simply Pure

NEW YORK–(ENEWSPF)–February 10, 2017

By: Kirsten West Savali

Drug policy is race policy. To honor drug-policy reformers on the front lines, this Black History Month, the Drug Policy Alliance, in partnership with The Root, is bringing you the stories of four phenomenal people who have been instrumental in shaping conversations around drug policy and its lethal effects on black communities around the country.

Wanda James doesn’t like to think of herself as “the first.”

“When somebody brought it to our attention at some point or another, it was completely shocking to me,” James told The Root. “I just don’t think any black person should be the first and only in this industry in 2016. You know what I mean?”

But there’s no shrugging off her history-smashing, future-shaping achievements.

In 2009, James, a former Navy lieutenant who served on former President Barack Obama’s 2008 Finance Committee, and her husband, Scott Durrah, a renowned chef, opened the Apothecary of Colorado, becoming the first black people in Colorado to own a cannabis dispensary.

They eventually sold Apothecary and opened Simply Pure Medicated Edibles, which serviced over 450 dispensaries and one hospice program. According to New Cannabis Ventures, James and Durrah “were the first Manufacturer of Infused Products (MIP) to build their own grow facility, cook with 100% flower, not trim, guaranteed consistency and potency, and operated out [of] a commercial kitchen with all highly trained chefs.”

Then a market shift occurred that demanded lower prices for highly potent edibles; so, because James and Durrah did not want to compromise their products, they closed Simply Pure and continued to work toward the full legalization of marijuana.

In 2012, Colorado voted to legalize the recreational use of marijuana; now, 27 other states and the District of Columbia have joined in the boom. With that hurdle behind them, James and Durrah reopened Simply Pure, a full-service cannabis dispensary that specializes in medical and recreational marijuana, in 2015. The groundbreaking dispensary boasts a creative menu, ranging from chocolate bars to gourmet cooking oils, making cannabis use both exciting and accessible.

While this accomplishment is remarkable in and of itself, it also positions James to continue to fight the war on drugs that has decimated so many families across the country. From their start owning restaurants in Denver and Santa Monica, Calif., to, in 2009, becoming the first black cannabis dispensary owners in Colorado, James and Durrah have been on the forefront of raising awareness about the “Green Rush” and the wealth of opportunities for black and Latinx people.

As previously reported by The Root, blacks and Latinos are still being unfairly targeted and arrested on marijuana-related charges—even though whites are more likely to sell drugs—and many former felons are prohibited from participating in the nation’s fastest-growing economy.

James was motivated to embark on her journey after learning that her brother, whom she didn’t meet until she was 35 years old, received a 10-year sentence for 4.5 ounces of marijuana. Four years of that sentence was served picking cotton in Texas.

“He and his mother went in front of the judge,” James said in a 2016
Democracy Now interview. “The judge made my brother a felon. My brother spent four-and-a-half years picking cotton for free in Texas. I always stop on that note, and I say it again, that my black brother, my black 17-year-old brother, spent four-and-a-half years picking cotton for free in Texas to gain his freedom. That was in 1992, not 1892. This is absurd to me.”

The harsh and pervasive reality of the slave-labor class embedded in our racist injustice system lit a flame within James that continues to burn bright.

In our interview, she talked about the white-male-dominated cannabis industry, the need to not only decriminalize and legalize marijuana, but to destigmatize it, the racial discrimination that exists in our judicial system, and why she is an out-and-proud pothead.

The Root: You are the first black woman to own one and operate a marijuana dispensary. How has that been received?

Wanda James: You know what? It’s been amazing. I personally have never had any necessarily negative backlash. We were raided once, which was terrifying, back in 2010. But even then, the response to our raid was congressmen, senators and elected officials all came out and immediately let law enforcement know that we were a legal agency. Law enforcement apologized, brought back all of our stuff.

So, I have never, personally, had any negativity at all. But, then again, I don’t really allow anybody to come at me negative on this. I shut them down immediately when they even look like they want to start on whatever it is that they want to start on, and the facts are amazing things in shutting people down.

TR: Speak a little bit to that. What are the typical things that you would say? Is it more talking about the stigma of it? And its dangers? What are some of the things that you have had to turn away or some of the negativity that you’ve had to just not engage in?

WJ: Well, for example, right now we’re in a battle with our City Council to allow for longer hours to open. One of the councilmen said he was concerned about his 8- and 12-year-old. Quite frankly, I’m tired of that verbiage, and I’m tired of dispensary owners feeling like we have to kowtow to the, you know, to the mommy lobby.

Yes, we want to have a product that does not get into children’s hands, which is what we do as responsible business owners. But as for your children being out in the world where cannabis exists, that’s a parental thing. You need to tell your children about cannabis, and about alcohol, and about too much sugar and about people that aren’t nice. So the idea that it is cannabis business owners’ job to make your world safe for your children is a ridiculous fallacy that no other business has to face.

TR: That’s a really good point. We interviewed [former NBA player] Al Harrington and he’s also trying to get into the cannabis industry, and he said one of his main goals was to employ more black and brown people, specifically those who have been affected by the drug war and locked up on marijuana charges, and put them to work, because it really is a gold rush. And black and brown people haven’t been allowed to participate in that. Black people have been the ones primarily affected and criminalized for drug selling and using. Have you been intentional about employing people of color for that reason?

WJ: It’s something that we’re very intentional about. I mean, I look at people of color, I look at women, I look at veterans. I’m a vet, I’m a woman, I’m a person of color. So, all of those things are extremely important to me. I’ve been doing this now since 2009.

One of the bigger issues that we have in this industry is when I do put out that I’m hiring, I get 100 résumés and two black people, or three Latinas. Very seldom do I get black people, specifically black women. So, part of it needs to be on us to take the onus to stand up and jump into this industry instead of allowing people and naysayers to make us believe that this is not a good place for people of color to be.

TR: I find that interesting for a couple of reasons, because one, you’re absolutely right, but how do you feel that we can go about de-stigmatizing it in black communities? Does there need to be more outreach about it? Does it need to be made even clearer that this is a business opportunity, maybe going to different communities and talking about that?

WJ: Well, I think there needs to be outreach about it. But, I also think that we need to get real, and all of the people that come to the dispensaries and all of the lawyers and all of the doctors and all of the elected officials that pretend like they don’t know what weed is, and they don’t smoke cannabis, need to come to the table and get real.

One of the things that I’m really big on, because of my position and because what I’ve done, and because I’ve worked with former President Barack Obama, it’s important for me to step out and say, ‘Yeah, I smoke cannabis.’ I’ve been smoking cannabis since I was in college. I make no qualms about the fact that I would rather have a joint than a martini.

I’m very excited about my cannabis use. I’m proud of my cannabis use. In the same way that ladies at lunch can talk about a fine merlot or a crisp chardonnay, I can break it down for you for what’s an excellent Indica or a vibrant Sativa. It’s time to get real about this.

TR: I absolutely agree, and this is one reason why your role is so significant in the context of black history. This is huge, you being a woman, you being a black woman. So, when you look back over at the course of your career, what do you see your end goal being? When you look back over your career, what do you want to have seen accomplished? When they say Wanda James, what do you want your legacy to be?

WJ: It’s interesting, we didn’t enter this to be the first, nor did we think we were going to be the first, nor did it even appear at the time that we would have been the first. It’s still surprising to me that during that time in 2009 and 2010, 2008, even before, how few black and brown people were fighting to get into the industry back then.

I think that my role in this is significant, because of the reasons that we just talked about. I have no shame about this. And when we talk about this, we have to talk about cannabis in terms of facts that here in Colorado, since legalization, we’ve seen over an 80 percent decrease in arrests for cannabis. And guess who was getting arrested mostly for cannabis in Colorado beforehand? We have seen a decrease in drunk driving. We have seen a decrease in violent crimes. We have seen a flat, no increase, in teenage use.

We have seen a 25,000-person increase in jobs here in Colorado because of the cannabis industry. Or we, let me put that better, we’ve started 25,000 jobs. So I think, when you start to look at black history, I can’t believe that there are actually black elected officials going around the country trying to talk white folks out of legalizing. It’s almost like saying, ‘Hey, continue to lock us up.’ Continue to keep focusing on, on the negative, especially when there is no negative to this plant.

TR: But the arrest rates have lowered for white people in Colorado, but have actually risen for black and Latino people, right?

WJ: Well, the arrest rates have gone down for everybody [pdf]. Where it has gone up, and it has gone through the roof, is for people under the age of 21. And it’s gone up almost 50 percent for black kids and down 9 percent for white kids. So, what’s happened here is corruption in law enforcement; since they can’t arrest people over the age of 21, they’ve decided to indoctrinate us early, and have now started arresting the kids.

And these are the important things that we have to look at in legislation, and as legalization increases across the nation. We have to make sure that some of these laws and these unattended consequences do not continue to happen.

We have to fight on every level. We have to talk about it on every level, but first and foremost, we need to get the elected officials that look like us on the right side of this, and not just in Colorado, not just in Washington, not just in California, but all the way across the United States.

“When you start to look at black history, I can’t believe that there are actually black elected officials going around the country trying to talk white folks out of legalizing. It’s almost like saying, ‘Hey, continue to lock us up.’”

TR: I wish I could try your products, but I’m in Mississippi. So, there is that.

WJ: [Laughs] See that’s what I’m talking about though! How obscene is it that that an American in Mississippi will go to jail for standing on the corner and smoking a joint, and yet white boys here in Colorado are selling a billion dollars worth of weed and no one’s going to jail?

As a matter of fact, they’re getting written up in Fortune magazine and Business Insider and Time magazine and all these different places. Yet, a kid in Mississippi is going to jail? What sense does that make? None at all.

TR: And that goes back to what you said about stigma from within the community as well. People really need to be real about it, because people smoke. But no one wants to talk about it.

WJ: It’s ridiculous! Are there people in the world that can’t deal with cannabis? Yes, there sure are. Are there people that can’t deal with alcohol? Yes, there are. Is diabetes in food in our, in our community what’s killing us the most? Yes, it is. You know, so when you start to talk about people and their issues, you can’t base a whole industry or one person’s weaknesses to stop an entire, positive forward-moving industry.

TR: Thank you so much for your time and your work in moving us forward in this way, because I really think this is, this is the nucleus of what we have to dismantle. So much stems from the drug war in general, and the oppression of people of color, specifically black people, so thank you for your work.

WJ: You are more than welcome, but like I said, all of this started off for us as fighting for social justice and there was never a point at which I thought we were going to be the first. We should have done that a long time ago. But this is just the beginning.

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When you create avenues to wealth that are built on roads paved with white supremacy, you get the marijuana gold rush. It is past time for the economic system in the United States that has wreaked such violence on black and brown communities, to pay us back what it owes us. James is on the forefront to make sure that happens.

Related Material:

The Root

Kassandra Frederique, Drug Policy Alliance’s Black History Month Series Visionary, Talks Owning Our Narratives

Kirsten West Savali, February 6, 2017

Crack babies, welfare queens, superpredators, thugs. That’s what they call us; those are the lies they tell about us.

The war on drugs—a war on the most vunerable and targeted black and brown communities in the United States of America—shapes black history just as much as it shapes our present struggle for liberation from a white supremacist capitalist state. One cannot discuss black history in its entirety without discussing the war on drugs—and dismantling that war will shape our future.

In 2013, this truth led Kassandra Frederique, New York State director for the Drug Policy Alliance, visionary, and 2016 Root 100 honoree, to create a series dedicated to drug-policy reformers to place the urgent need for justice squarely in the Black History Month narrative.

At its conception, DPA’s Black History Month series was the birth of awareness for Frederique, who has been at the forefront of the war against drugs since 2009.

In February 2012, New York Police Officer Richard Haste gunned down 18-year-old Ramarley Graham in his grandmother’s home after targeting him on the street. Haste alleged that Graham was selling marijuana and used that unsubstantiated allegation as a rationalization for his cold-blooded execution.

When traces of THC, the chemical found in marijuana, were discovered in Trayvon Martin’s system during the autopsy of his body, racists used that fact to justify George Zimmerman profiling, stalking and ultimately killing him on that rainy night in Sanford, Fla.

“I knew in that moment if we didn’t connect the way the drug war was killing us, then we were complicit in disappearing their lives,” Frederique says.

She’s absolutely right. In 2015, the New York Times declared 1.5 million black men between the ages of 25 and 54 “missing.” Because of early death and incarceration, there are 1.5 million more black women who are not behind bars than men in that age group. That disparity for whites is virtually nonexistent. One in every 13 black Americans has lost voting rights due to disenfranchisement laws. In 2014, the imprisonment rate for black American women was more than twice that of white women.

These oppressive conditions under an expanded police state can be traced directly to the so-called war on drugs, which is a systemic tool of enslavement. It has ravaged black and Latinx working-class communities, leaving white communities relatively unscathed. It has been positioned as a necessary response to crime and poverty when we know it to be a primary cause.

For Frederique, it has been critical to connect those dots for people who might not see the broader and deeper picture. And what better time than February?

“The Black History Month project started out as an apology,” Frederique tells The Root. “From me to myself, to the future black drug-policy reformers that were on their way. I believed this narrative that what was happening to us—incarceration, addiction, family destabilization—was a result of us ‘getting for what we asked for.’

“I had always asked for a more definitive commitment from our movement on racial justice but I guess I always feared that they would throw back in my face that ‘we did this,’” Frederique continues. “I think back to my earlier years in this movement and wondered if I was assertive enough, if I asked all the questions that I needed to, did I study our movement hard enough.

“Now when I speak at forums, and attendees ask me what I think the role of black America was in the drug war, I reply, ‘Yes, we wanted some of us to be locked up, but we also wanted treatment and we never got that part,’” Frederique adds.

Troubled History

As previously reported by The Root, when Bill Clinton’s crime bill passed in 1994, it was with the help of 23 members of the Congressional Black Caucus who were an expecting a reinvestment in the black community.

In addition to that never happening, the bill was stripped of the Racial Justice Act, which would have allowed death row inmates to use data showing racial inequities in sentencing. The bill was also stripped of $3.3 billion—two-thirds of it from prevention programs. A provision that would have made 16,000 low-level drug offenders eligible for early release was also removed.

“They urinated on us and told us it was raining,” Frederique says. “But I am not as gracious with our leaders of the past; Charlie Rangel’s apology in [Ava DuVernay’s documentary] 13th is not enough.

“We threw away whole parts of our community and we need to examine that, as well, because that is our history, it just isn’t all of it, and there is power in telling the full story,” Frederique continues.

Frederique also notes that it’s important to recognize that drug-policy reform is not an industry of white saviors. It is so easy to believe otherwise only because black pioneers have largely been erased from the conversation.

“For the most part, we are meant to believe that benevolent white folks are how we got to where we are at now in our war against the war on drugs,” she tells The Root.

“Yes, there are tons of brave, white drug-policy reformers who forged paths for the drug war to end, like Ethan Nadelmann, Craig Reinarman and Ira Glasser, but they all read Troy Duster’s book,” Frederique continues. “Beny Primm mentored Deborah Peterson Small. There was and is a resistance that has always been black.”

“Black people have been the most severely impacted by the war on drugs,” Frederique adds. “And in this moment when white faces have caused the nation to have a critical interrogation about what to do about drugs, black people need the whole story, so in the moment, that we can demand the necessary acknowledgment, atonement and action to build our communities.”

Drug policy is race policy. And to honor drug-policy reformers on the front lines, the Drug Policy Alliance, in partnership with The Root, is bringing you the stories of four phenomenal people who have been instrumental in shaping conversations around drug policy and its lethal effects on black communities around the country.

We begin next week with Wanda James, CEO of the Denver-based cannabis dispensary Simply Pure. James, the first black woman to own a cannabis dispensary, says that it’s time for black America to not only look at the economic opportunities that the cannabis industry represents, but to also do the necessary work of eradicating the stigma surrounding drug use.

“All of the people that come to the dispensaries and all of the lawyers and all of the doctors and all of the elected officials that pretend like they don’t know what weed is and they don’t smoke cannabis need to come to the table and get real.”

Let’s get real.

Source: http://drugpolicy.org

 

 


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