“Back then, the quality of it was what they consider to be reggie, bush or regs,” said JP, now 38 .
JP is still making money off marijuana 25 years later, but now he talks a lot more about the quality of the product and customer experience.
With New York’s legalization of marijuana in March, JP and his business partner, both Hispanic, are strategizing on how to gain a foothold in the adult-use market—a space that elsewhere in the country has remained overwhelmingly white.
Some have been laying the groundwork for years—for instance, JP’s friend who owns the CBD shop, Come Back Daily, opened it in 2018 with the goal of one day turning it into a legal dispensary.
Morón said she has identified a few banks in New York that allow cannabis businesses to open accounts but aren’t likely to offer loans.
The early days of marijuana legalization in other states often excluded many people with black market experience and disproportionately left out Black and Hispanic people, who are arrested for marijuana-related offenses at a higher rate than whites.
In 2017, a national survey by Marijuana Business Daily found that 81% of people with an ownership stake in a legal marijuana business were white, and only 4.3% were Black.
The law expunges all marijuana convictions and sets aside half of all cannabis licenses for “social and economic equity” applicants—a group that includes people of color, women-and-minority-owned businesses and people from communities disproportionately impacted by prohibition.
A February article in MJBizDaily pointed to Los Angeles as an example where a social equity program left some applicants “worse off now financially than when they began the social equity qualification process.” The program required applicants to rent or purchase real estate before filing their paperwork and then wait more than a year, in some cases, to complete the process.
But she said it’s important to do outreach beyond these seminars, which have been held online during the pandemic to reach those who might be interested but are not actively seeking a legal cannabis career.
“In my neighborhood, we have a lot of food pantries, and we have a lot of barbershops and hair salons, so individuals go to those places,” said Wright, who lives in Flatbush.
Given the MRTA has further decriminalized the sale of marijuana, some dealers might not see the point of going legit.
Wright is pursuing a way into the industry as well, possibly through the cannabis-infused mocktails she already makes.
Wright said her son was arrested outside their home 10 years ago, when he was 17, on suspicion of possessing marijuana .
His mother was unwilling to help with startup capital when he wanted to open a CBD shop, although she said she would have helped if it was a restaurant or laundromat.
“With my mother, it created a rift between us because I was raised in a very strict Asian way,” Phan said.
If it weren’t for his passion for the plant, Phan said, he isn’t sure the marijuana business would be worth it.