On Friday, June 26, Minorities for Medical Marijuana (M4MM), held a virtual event titled: More Than A Moment: Dismantling Systemic Racism in the Cannabis Industry. The event was hosted by Roz McCarthy, Founder and CEO of M4MM, and brought speakers from all areas within the cannabis space to discuss the need for change within the industry today as well as steps for tackling these issues.
The event opened with a large stopwatch, which read 8 minutes and 46 seconds, the same amount of time that George Floyd was held on the ground with a police officer’s knee pressing on his neck. As the clock began to tick music played, and videos and images of protestors fighting for Black lives filled the screen. The video ended with a slideshow of a few names of those killed due to police brutality, recognizing George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, amongst many others. McCarthy commenced the evening with the statement that if that video doesn’t inspire rage and a need for change, then nothing else would.
The first speaker was Brandon Wyatt of Minority Cannabis Business Association (MCBA). Wyatt stated, “Civil rights and business [go] hand in hand,” acknowledging the need for businesses to take these issues seriously and enact change in the ways they operate.
The next speaker was Erik Range, Board Chair of M4MM. Range explained the many ways in which racism is pervasive within the cannabis industry. Range emphasized that since the cannabis space is still being built, there is an opportunity within such a young industry to create this much-needed change. “We know for a fact what this industry can be,” Range added. “Black and Brown folks have been allies of so many different movements. We’ve been allies of the United States itself when we fought wars abroad, to immigrants, women, the LBGTQ community…we have been allies to almost every community that exists, and now it’s time for people to step up and be our ally.”
The allyship Range referred to is about a specific and empowered level of partnership that is absent in the industry. Range emphasized that the goal of partnership and allyship should not “make us charity cases. We don’t need one-off events, [we need] true partners. We need someone to add value to our community the ways we add value to their communities.”