Black athletes and entertainers have made the jump from owning music production companies to owning hemp production companies. No longer are they simply consuming marijuana, they are leveraging their brand and influence to acquire equity in grow companies and strains. This is the definition of Own Your Masters. How did we get here and how can we continue creating equity by leveraging hemp for victory?
Domestic production of hemp
In the 1600s, the Dutch had a monopoly on sailing materials - particularly rope and sail cloth. If any country wanted to sail, it had to buy the material from the Dutch. After a successful raid, the Royal Navy confiscated Indian Hemp seeds from the Dutch and brought them back to the colonies. In an attempt to destroy the monopoly, the First General Assembly of Virginia mandated farmers to plant hemp.
In 1619, the first Africans arrived in Hampton, VA on a pirate ship called White Lion. Stolen from a Spanish ship, Virginia’s first Africans would soon play a pivotal role in cultivating America’s green giant - hemp.
There is little doubt that enslaved Africans were responsible for growing hemp in the colonies. Imagine being forced to grow a plant, which would later be used to make rope that, among other things, would be used to hang you. This is the Caucasity of Dope.
Drug Dealers, Criminals, Rapists
Everyone was outraged when Trump relegated Mexican immigrants to “drug dealers, criminals, and rapists”, and rightfully so. What many don’t realize is how familiar of a trope this actually is. They say history doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes.
Recreational use of hemp in the U.S., marijuana, came into prominence in the early 1900s after the Mexican Revolution of 1910. As much as we disliked hearing what Trump had to say about Mexicans, the phrase “Marijuana Menace” was first introduced in the early 1900s in reference to Mexican immigrants, which ultimately led to one of the earliest Anti-Drug campaigns and the Federal Bureau of Narcotics being formed.
Of course, the issue wasn’t marijuana usage among white people. The campaign touted “research”, which suggested smoking marijuana was linked to violent socially deviant crimes - especially within “racially inferior” groups. By 1931, marijuana was outlawed by over half the states in the country. The icing on the cake was in 1937 when Congress passed the Marijuana Tax Act, which criminalized what was once a legal import.
Hemp for Victory
In a previous article we talked about how America uses media propaganda to justify its actions sometimes at the behest of the federal government. To that end, the USDA sponsored the following short film, Hemp for Victory, after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941. Because necessary supplies for war were no longer available from the far east, the U.S. government leveraged the attack to once again mandate American hemp production in the name of...patriotism. Of course, only registered farmers were permitted to take advantage of this huge opportunity.
Marijuana Use in Pop Culture
Of late, there’s much ado about the 1994 Crime Bill, and rightfully so, but that wasn’t the first time the American justice system declared a “War on Drugs”. In 1951, the Boggs Act of 1951 first introduced the “three strikes” concept guaranteeing mandatory minimum sentences of two to five years for a first offense, five to ten years for a second offense, and ten to fifteen years for each subsequent offense.
Over the years, celebrities and media have played a significant role in advancing the perception of marijuana culture. In spite of stricter sentencing laws, the sixties and seventies introduced a new wrinkle, upper middle class white Americans were now smoking, which almost by definition “decriminalizes” the act. According to the Brookings Institute, Black Americans are four times as likely to be arrested for marijuana usage. Watch as former basketball prodigy turned fashion mogul, Ralph Reynolds, details getting caught smoking weed in school.
Legalize It
In America, legality is a very fluid concept as illustrated in this article. Slavery was legal but the enslaved could not “legally” marry. Along those lines, we celebrate the famous Loving vs. Virginia case when, in fact, California legalized interracial marriage almost twenty years earlier 1948.
Like many progressive policies, California led the way legalizing medical marijuana usage in 1996 for AIDS, Cancer, and other painful disease patients. Between 1996 and 2012, eighteen more states would follow California’s lead either legalizing or decriminalizing marijuana usage.
During this past presidential election, Oregon has become the first state to decriminalize possession of hard drugs. As if that wasn’t enough, Senator Chuck Schumer has vowed to make federal legalization of marijuana a top priority if the Democrats regain the senate majority.
Up in Smoke
From the beginning, hip-hop culture has been laced with references to weed smoking. In the nineties, phrases like smoking woolies - marijuana combined with either heroin, cocaine, or crack -, crumblin’ erb, steamin’, etc. updated weed lingo as well as renewed a sense of cultural acceptance. Obviously, marijuana consumption was neither limited to rappers nor hip hop culture and neither was the sale of it. In truth, until the pandemic, illegal marijuana sales had been cutting the profit margins of legal sales.
According to Mitch Baruchowitz, the pandemic is cannibalizing the cannabis Black market. Given Black people have largely been relegated to said Black market even as cannabis is being legalized across the country, marijuana gentrification is alive and well. According to NBC News, Black people make up only 4.3 percent of owners in the legal marijuana industry.
Take a toke, but don’t choke! Hip Hop has once again swooped in to save the day. The same Black men who earned their street cred on corners during the crack era and eventually found their way out through rap music are now re-entering the drug game - legally. Some of the biggest names in rap including Snoop, Redman, 2 Chainz, Lil Wayne, and now JAY-Z with monogram are blazing a trail for economic equity in the space.
McKinsey & Company, arguably the world’s top consulting firm, asserts Black business ownership is a key component for closing the daunting Black-white wealth gap. Hopefully, through these artists’ leadership, more Black faces will be ushered into the burgeoning legal marijuana space as employees and eventually owners - not just consumers. Until then, we can all become owners by investing in publicly traded so-called “weed stocks”.
In alphabetical order, here are a few to consider immediately: APHA, CGC, and TLRY. If individual weed stocks give you paranoia, consider investing in a weed index fund, which provides a basket of companies operating in the marijuana industry. The world’s largest marijuana ETF is MJ. Frankly, the only thing stopping you from owning in this space is a stock trading account, and a few dollars. As always, building wealth individually and as a community is our responsibility. #ownyourmasters