Throughout history, the Black community has experienced over-criminalization of weed and over-policing of their communities. 

According to the Drug Policy Alliance, communities of color are “more likely to be stopped, searched, arrested, convicted, harshly sentenced, and saddled with a lifelong criminal record.  This is particularly the case for drug law violations.”

The importance of buying weed, among other things, from Black and POC-owned businesses has been highlighted in the media stemming from the Black Lives Matter protests.  Supporting POC-owned businesses should be a norm in our society, not just a moment of calls for justice.

There are databases that help consumers find and support Black and POC-owned businesses.  These databases have been a long time coming and are important in working towards social equity in the industry.

Cannaclusive is an organization that was created to facilitate representation of minority-owned cannabis businesses.   Cannaclusive has worked with Almost Consulting over the past few years in order to create a database called the InclusiveBase.

Weedmaps spoke to Mary Pryor, Cannaclusive’s co-founder, and Kieryn Wang, cannabis consultant of Almost Consulting, regarding the importance of supporting Black and POC-owned businesses.

The startup costs are very high for plant-touching businesses, so supporting Black and Brown-owned businesses is just a way of saying that you understand, that you know there is a lot of work that goes into being able to access action items to start these businesses.

Mary Pryor

When you’re shopping from a small business -- specifically POC and Black-owned -- you’re helping support the next rent check, you’re helping put kids through school, you’re helping put the next meal on the table. [...] I saw a tweet one time, it said: “Thank you so much to whoever just put an order in on my store -- I have groceries for tomorrow now!” That’s the kind of impact that you’re making.

Kieryn Wang

Read the full interview on Weedmaps.