00:00You know what? Yeah, I was smoking when I was 16.
00:04And then let me tell you what happened after that.
00:06I went on to be the first person to graduate from college in my family.
00:09I smoked weed and I went to Harvard.
00:10I went on to be a United States Naval Officer.
00:12I smoked weed and I have an MBA.
00:14I went on to be a corporate executive in Fortune 100 companies.
00:17I smoked weed and I used to work on Wall Street.
00:19I went on to be the first black woman to own a dispensary and edible company at a growth facility
00:22in Colorado.
00:23I smoked weed and I work for a cannabis startup.
00:26That's what a pothead does.
00:35I'm scabbin' with Starbucks.
00:59really happening and women have a chance to be a part of it estro haze is a media company
01:05focused on bringing the business and lifestyles of women in cannabis to the masses particularly
01:11women of color i literally drove from sugarland texas and to colorado got into the industry
01:22we are a minority focused business development and management company
01:27the most common misconception from outside is that we're all stoners
01:32what we're trying to do is create a really welcoming retail experience as opposed to
01:36intimidating and scary and illegal i hate to break it to everybody but this is a business
01:48i come into the office i meet with my staff i meet with my marketing director i meet with my
01:53controller
01:54at the end of the day if you don't understand h.r issues if you don't understand hiring and firing
01:59if you don't understand basic accounting if you don't understand basic marketing then you're not
02:04going to survive in this business cannabis has all kind of hurdles that you have to get over it's not
02:12federally legal we know that i mean when we started there wasn't even a category within colorado to go
02:18down to the city to say i'm applying for a medical marijuana license and then to top it all off
02:24you're a woman of color you're a woman and then a woman of color now that it is legalized whether
02:30medicinal or recreational why is it important for us to have a position in this industry as business
02:35owners as entrepreneurs as employees and or as investors it's very important because this industry was built on our backs
02:43my job is to make sure that that door is not opened but that door is kicked the
02:48down so that more people can come through it
02:54historically cannabis was something that overwhelmingly penalized people of color and
02:58especially men of color and now as the industry starts legalized the ones who are benefiting are
03:02you know white men and so it's an interesting subject being a woman of color in this industry
03:09the race thing in this industry is real the social justice aspect of it we can't lose sight of that
03:15i began to learn more about how and why it became illegal and i i got really pissed off because
03:22i thought
03:23it was this drug and so i believe that all people of color especially african americans and latinos i mean
03:31we've experienced travesty devastation due to the failed war on drugs america's public enemy number one
03:41in the united states is drug abuse it's turning our cities into battle zones you will be caught and when
03:49you're caught you will be prosecuted and once you're convicted you will do time there's now an
03:57understanding that the war on drugs was an abject failure we've spent over a trillion dollars on a
04:06failed war on drugs that concentrates on prohibition and punishment
04:14forbes reports on a remark by a former nixon aide hinting that the war on drugs had a hidden purpose
04:20that president nixon saw the drug crackdown as a way to arrest blacks and anti-war protesters
04:40i realize a lot of my sisters and brothers aren't able to be out here because they're incarcerated
04:45and we know that the war on drugs has been a war on us it's really up that it's people
04:51still in jail
04:52people that look like us and people are out here selling that is not right and we will fight every
04:58day until that is not happening my brother was actually the first person that i had ever met
05:03that had been arrested for cannabis he grew up in south dallas i grew up here in colorado when i
05:08went
05:08to school at the university of colorado CUPD would walk by see me and three of my white girlfriends on
05:13the steps roll and be like hey put it away put it away like all right we put it away
05:18cops go we bring
05:19back out and start rolling again i've got to say i've never had a fear of being arrested for cannabis
05:24because in my very very non-black world nobody got arrested when my brother told me he had a felony
05:32and just got out of prison my heart sank my stomach tightened up because i thought the next words out
05:38of
05:38my brother's mouth were going to be he raped somebody he killed somebody he did something really
05:43horrible when he said four ounces of weed i didn't believe him because who goes to jail for four
05:48ounces of weed i became convinced after a period of time that marijuana was not a safety risk
05:55and i also think the way marijuana cases historically have been handed ultimately has not been fair and
06:01i'll give you some of the data that suggests that in 2017 about 86 percent of the individuals who
06:07arrested with marijuana either possession or smoking were men and women of color in manhattan for every
06:13one white person who was arrested for possessing or smoking marijuana 15 men and women of color were
06:19arrested now we know that white men and women use and smoke marijuana the same as men and women of
06:25color so there's really no difference in how they use it but the enforcement was much harder on
06:30communities of color they came after black and brown boys because a they had no ability to defend
06:36themselves they had no ability to have money to have a lawyer and this became our mass incarceration
06:43our slave labor class so this is where we make sure that all of the joints are actually a gram
06:56why do we do this right now it's not about money you know we have not turned a profit yet
07:01in cannabis
07:01because we are selling a schedule one illegal drug for us it's social justice how can we have more
07:09representation of women and minorities in the industry and not just representation but leadership
07:13and not just leadership but community we need to stop the culture of competition amongst women because
07:21when men and especially white men own 77 percent of political power 89 percent of ceo power 98 percent of
07:28wealth we need to have a spirit of yeah girl let's do this and in the cannabis industry i mean
07:35it's the
07:35fastest growing industry in america not one of them but the fastest growing industry in america when i
07:40became an entrepreneur young black women were not the number one business starters in america today we are
07:48this industry allows us to leave a legacy it's about being focused it's about aligning with the right
07:53people it's about not giving up and once you understand that and understand what your purpose is you become unstoppable
Comments