BlackSeed
My proposed project is called BlackSeed, a community-based consulting and certification group focused on cannabis justice. We work to create a more just and accountable cannabis community and landscape by working with individuals, groups, and businesses in the following value-centered ways:
Full range support and consultation on work and initiatives that focus on race and gender justice and decriminalization.
Facilitate and support dignified partnerships with a wide range of Black and Latinx- led community groups and cannabis businesses that are based in community focused support and business accountability.
Certify that businesses are meeting justice and equity standards in a holistic practice as guided by community informed metrics and values.
Help with recruitment, hiring and training of new and existing staff utilizing an anti- oppression and liberation framework that addresses and moves beyond diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Assess and make recommendations on internal infrastructure, policies, and operations to ensure alignment with Diversity Equity and Transformation (DET) standards and just values.
PROBLEM ANALYSIS
The problems that we are working to address is the current hyper-capitalist cannabis reform space that has been a response to its widespread legalization in the United States. This legalization, although offering a reprieve from continued cannabis related criminalization in many Black and Latinx communities, continues to perpetuate systemic racism and exacerbates white supremacy by making white owned cannabis companies the primary beneficiaries of the legalization.
Historically, Black people specifically have been arrested and incarcerated at more than double the rates of white people who utilize cannabis at the same rates.
Today the racial inequities continues and exacerbates white supremacy by making white owned cannabis companies the primary beneficiaries of the legalization. At the same time, Black and Latine people have continued to carry the burden of cannabis criminalization that began with the war on drugs and mass criminalization and continues with their denial from the market and space, due to the collateral remnants of prohibition.
Impact
The long-term impact is to have historically criminalized communities, particularly in New York State, gain access to resources, reparative care and education as the result of legalized cannabis implementation. Through achieving the direct impact of Black and Latinx New Yorkers having access to reparations from cannabis prohibition, I intend for this to set the tone for all drugs including ones portrayed as more serious and violent.
Ultimately, I hope that Black people can enjoy the full pleasures and benefits of the cannabis plant and other drugs, in light of historical anti-Black injustice, without harm, shame, and criminalization.
