Revolt Summit Highlights
A Few Of My Favorite Moments From The Future Of Cannabis Panel at REVOLT Summit!
I recently recapped my favorite moments of 2022—and by far being on this panel at REVOLT SUMMIT was one of the best!
So I’ve put together some highlights from our discussion on The Future of Cannabis!
Moderated by Mouse Jones, I was joined by three incredible fellow advocates on this panel: Berner, Bobby Schmurda, and Al Harrington.
Check out the recap below, and be sure to watch the full panel on REVOLT.TV!
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Mouse Jones: Now, Tammy, your goals are what? It says that you're in the industry to advocate, educate, empower and help remove the taboo around cannabis use and the users. How are you going about that?
Tammy: Well, I feel that the reason why cannabis is illegal is because of the ignorance surrounding prohibition.
So, we need to properly disseminate the information—which is that you're biologically made to receive this plant.
You have receptors to receive this plant, and your body actually does produce its own version of THC—we call these endocannabinoids.
I also have a cannabis book club, The Higher Learning Book Club, and we meet weekly on Zoom.
What we've been able to do is create advocates. People who have been in the closet about their use have come out and lobbied their politicians and rallied their communities.
So that's part of how I give back. And then we have scholarships for the courses and for the book club. So that's how I'm giving back.
***
Mouse Jones: Now, historically, the penalty for marijuana possession has been out of proportion with other crimes. How has that impacted communities?
Tammy: So the War on Drugs was detrimental to the black community because it created criminals and it made a caste system.
So people assume that going to jail for cannabis is terrible. But really, it's what happens once you get out.
You are barred from education, from housing, from public benefits, from loans, from jobs, from voting, from traveling, from jury duty.
***
Mouse Jones: Now I want to ask this question to Tammy and Bobby specifically. With the recidivism rate as high as it is and has been for the black community all these years, what are some of the challenges that people coming home have getting into the cannabis industry?
Tammy: Well, there was a rule where if you were charged with any kind of drug crime, you could not enter the industry, which was very biased.
The people that were responsible for you being locked away are now in this industry profiting and benefiting, but luckily a lot of states have reversed that.
But there's still a huge access barrier in California and it's an absolute nightmare. To get started. You're gonna need around a million dollars bare minimum if you want to cultivate.
Mouse Jones: What does that $1 million cover?
Tammy: It's going to cover your property. It's going to cover your lights, your nutrients, your staff, your security, your plant, your genetics. There's so much that goes into it.
And black women are actually the number one demographic for entrepreneurship right now. So whatever your talent is, you can bring it to the cannabis industry because we need it right now.
***
Mouse Jones: Now, I want to read a stat. And I want you all to tell me: do you see this changing? In a 2022 analysis of marijuana possession, arrests in Texas for the years 2017 to 2019 reported that African Americans comprised 30.2% of all possession arrests. Yet, black people comprise only 12.9% of the state's population. How do we fix that?
Tammy: I don't know if they want it to be fixed. When you look at it, we went from slavery, to Jim Crow reconstruction, to mass incarceration.
And there are families of men who could not vote because they had a record and their father could not vote because of poll taxes and literacy tests.
And their grandfather couldn't vote because of clan intimidation. And their father couldn't vote because he just wasn't allowed. And then his father couldn't vote because he was enslaved.
It's by design.
So what's happening next is they're going to start making e-carceration a thing where you get to be at home. It cuts the cost, there's no overhead, and now they're making billions.
So the whole system just has to go.
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