Indopedia All Things Marijuana
As cannabis transforms from illicit underground drug to big business commercial commodity, similar changes are being made behind the scenes of your bud. Deep pocketed, mostly straight, white businessmen are profiting from the newly legal flower as huge swaths of the country while African-Americans and Latinos are serving time in jail for selling the same product without permits. But while much attention has been given to the underserved nature of women and minorities in the industry, LGBTQ activists are still fighting for even an initial foothold in legal weed, an industry the queer community was integral in establishing.
According to an in-depth look at the subject from Tessa Love for Slate, while equity programs in cities like Oakland, California and Washington D.C. have been established to make sure that people of color have an opportunity to enter the industry, and racial minorities and women both already occupy a significantly higher percentage of ownership and executive roles in cannabis companies than corporate America, the same cannot be said for the LGBTQ community.
For Jay Jackson, better known as Laganja Estranja, a drag queen, choreographer, entrepreneur and…
