Going Beyond “Bongs & Thongs”
My Thoughts on Women in Cannabis, Legalization without Reparations, and Corporate Cannabis’ Lack of Inclusivity
I recently got to sit down with Green Street in LA, a cannabis business epicenter, for an in-depth interview.
Check it out now for my thoughts on why women really use cannabis, why I’m not a fan of Federal legalization….
….And why so many corporate cannabis companies are getting inclusivity wrong.
Interviewer: How did you become The Cannabis Cutie?
Tammy: I first got into cannabis when I was in college. My entire life, I had listened to the D.A.R.E. program and everybody else and stayed away from drugs and alcohol.
And then my freshman year of college, the resident pothead made the honor roll while I ended up on academic probation. So that was the straw that broke the camel's back.
I was open to trying things and it changed my life. From that point on, I haven't been able to shut up about the benefits. I was advocating in Oklahoma, Michigan, and Miami where I went to grad school.
And once I found out there was science to back up my ‘woo woo’ thoughts on this plant, I became dangerous.
Interviewer: How did you become a cannabis educator?
So when I started, ‘cannabis education’ as a career was not a thing. So I was essentially creating this new idea without a blueprint.
And I definitely got laughed at and there was a lot of doubt. But I kept going and it started to work.
Interviewer: What are you most proud of creating?
Tammy: I would say one of the biggest things that I created was a cannabis book club, the Higher Learning Book Club.
We read any book that has cannabis undertones. And we dissect it together in four to six weeks. And then we do Q&A's with the authors.
The goal of the book club is to create advocates around the country and the world.
Interviewer: How did the pandemic affect your business?
During the pandemic, I saw tons of people creating new habits, and I wanted to help people create a good habit.
Interviewer: How have you seen the public perception of cannabis evolve?
When I first started advocating in 2008, cannabis users were still seen as crackheads and low lifes. Today, cannabis consumption has become kind of whitewashed. And it is very much accepted.
But there's still a divide. If you look at the marketing, some companies show what they want us to see as consumers.
Then there are black and brown people plastered on the news as criminals.
Like Iman Shumpert, for example, because he was traveling with cannabis.
Interviewer: What’s been the hardest obstacle you’ve had to overcome?
Tammy: So for me, it was coming out of the cannabis closet and admitting as a professional, an educated person, and as a mother that I use cannabis—and I have for over a decade!
I was interested in showing people what a stoner actually looks like. For women, you are represented as hot and usually in your underwear ripping a bong.
But we're so much more than bongs and thongs!
And I've wanted to be a representation of that. Women use cannabis for so many reasons!
Our uterus has so many receptors. We crave this for our well being and our health. And I just wanted people to see that.
So that's what I do just by being myself and being present and sharing that with everyone. I've seen plenty of people come out and say, “Yeah, I use cannabis and I'm a doctor, or I'm a lawyer, or I'm this.”
So it's been fun to watch people stepping out and admitting that they're a “drug user” and showing people what responsible “drug use” looks like.
For people looking to do the same, the best advice I can give is education. When you're able to arm yourself with facts, you can break down the ignorance or the barrier that people have.
Facts can overcome emotion.
Now, some people choose to believe that emotion is fact for them. But typically, most people are responsive when you're like, “Hey, did you know this is just a plant?”
You know that oranges or tomatoes aren’t evil. Once-upon-a-time tomatoes were considered evil and people throwing tomatoes at you was a form of disrespect, but not anymore.
Cannabis is a plant. There's nothing inherently evil about a plant that grows with sunlight and water.
Interviewer: Your thoughts on legalization?
The California market is in turmoil and Federal legalization does not seem like it's coming any closer.
I'm personally scared to see Federal legalization happen because I'm worried that we're not going to respect everything that came before.
With all of these states, legal cannabis all started as a movement of sick people who were using cannabis as medicine, which parlayed into compassionate use in the ‘80s.
Today, we have cannabis programs across the nation for medicinal use.
And my fear is that in this country, profit becomes the focus. I think we're going to lose the heart of why this industry is able to exist today.
I'm worried that we're not going to respect the growers, and the cultivators, and the breeders, and the advocates who made sure that this plant stayed alive when our government really tried to wipe it off the face of the earth.
And I'm watching this new industry completely forget about our past.
For me, I think we’ve got to be mindful of our history and be respectful of that moving forward. So I would hope to see that the industry is equitable and acknowledging the plant is harmless.
But we created so much harm in certain communities that haven't really been able to recover. How can we use some of these profits to repair that? Can there be reparations because the drug war was done in low income communities?
If you went to private schools, the drugs were there too—but authorities consciously chose to overlook that.
It was a choice for the government to go into poor communities and criminalize these people who now have to check these boxes for the rest of their lives.
They are barred from housing, loans, education, voting, and so much more.
I also don't believe we can do reparations after legislation.
Slavery proved we're not good at that. The promise of “40 acres and a mule” never happened.
So as we can get the reparations and the legislation done together, I'm all for Federal legalization.
But I'm scared that I'm not seeing that happen on a serious level.
Interviewer: How do you feel about people coming into the industry now?
You know, I think there's tons of people coming into the industry who see opportunities.
This plant is for everyone, but I don't think new players understand how tight knit the community and the culture actually are.
I grew up in Oklahoma the majority of my adolescent life, and that community was so tight knit because we had a bombing. We went through a lot together.
And then we had tornadoes that came sweeping down the lane multiple times and knocking down the same neighborhood three times. So that community has gone through so much together.
And that's the same thing with the cannabis community. We’ve been vilified, demonized, misunderstood, but still held it down and stayed together.
Now, here are these new people just coming in. And it just seems like they are knocking all the old people over.
And it feels weird, but I don't know if it's intentional or if they even realize how tight knit our community is.
Interviewer: What is the ideal cannabis community moving forward?
The ideal cannabis community moving forward is collaboration between the advocates in the legacy world and the new people who want to come in.
The best way to be successful and to connect with the community is to work with the community and to be one.
It's a matter of having conversations and being genuine in the approach.
Interviewer: Can you talk a little bit about who the legacy people are?
Tammy: Yeah, so these legacy people are the ones who dared to consume this plant. Even though people would make them feel like pariahs, these are the people who used it as medicine before there were medical programs to tout.
And before it was aesthetically cool.
These are the people who grew and bred the plant. The people who went to jail as part of a business before it was legal to be a businessman or a businesswoman. These are the people that came before us.
There was a meme that went around talking about how there are people in jail for paying their bills with weed money while the government is paying its bills with weed money.
So there's that hypocrisy. That's who I'm speaking of.
If you are profiting and monetizing in this industry, you owe it to the spirit of the plant to properly educate people on what it is and help remove the stigma because it seems like the propaganda is on its way back.
The Reefer Madness is on its way back, and we owe it to the money that we're making and the experiences that we have with this plant to correct that misinformation.
Interviewer: How can people get educated on this plant?
Tammy: I have my cannabis book club that meets weekly. I also started an in-person version at the Soho House.
Plus I have my Cannabis 101 online course. And I work as a consultant to help small businesses.
As a content creator, I make tons of blogs and videos–all free–to educate people.
And then I always go off on my Instagram Stories about breaking news, trending topics, and general questions in cannabis.
Interviewer: So people laughed at your dream of being a cannabis educator?
Tammy: Well, they have come full circle when one of the world's biggest stoners puts a stamp of approval on what it is that you're doing.
Interviewer: You’re talking about your upcoming projects with Snoop Dogg?
Tammy: Yeah.
Interviewer: What barriers to entry are there in the cannabis industry?
Tammy: The biggest obstacle for many people is financial. People who have been barred from society for being criminalized for possession of drugs or selling drugs find it hard to make big sums of money.
In California, you've got to have upwards of a million dollars to participate in this industry.
So I think the biggest barrier is the financial game, which is why a lot of wealthy people are just able to come into the industry and operate…
Meanwhile the people who actually have decades of experience are forced to the side.
And typically, people with money are going to give to people who look like them.
There's just not a lot of black or Puerto Rican women who are just rolling in dough that can just invest in us.
So we're kind of stuck. And the numbers show that we just don't have people investing in us.
But, you know, I think being loud and not backing down, just like the people who have come before us, is necessary. You have got to apply pressure until they see it.
Interviewer: What’s your favorite thing about the canna community?
My favorite part about cannabis is the community. We are so vocal. We're so proud of what this plant is capable of doing and we scream it from the rooftops. Cannabis is a great unifier.
In college, I smoked with people from all over the world and country. And cannabis was that thing that we had in common.
Cannabis is what broke the ice and helped us to understand each other.
So that's one of my favorite things about this industry—it can connect us all.
Interviewer: What are some positive changes you’ve seen since cannabis was legalized?
Tammy: Some of the good things that I've seen are more people adopting cannabis consumption and letting go of alcohol abuse.
Alcohol is just another drug that’s legalized.
Cannabis is a known anti-inflammatory and controls a lot of systems in our body.
So to see people putting down alcohol is good because it causes inflammation all over your body, and affects your moods & sleep.
Seeing people moving towards a more holistic way of intoxication has been amazing to watch.
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