The struggle Black cannabis business owners face, and what they say needs to change

Enid Parham remembers friends and family going to prison for marijuana-related offenses and having their families taken away when she was a child growing up in Detroit. Now, she's working as a cannabis chef in Michigan's legalized recreational marijuana industry.
Parham, who also goes by Chef Sunflower and owns the Detroit-based company Lucky Pistil Catering, is one of a few Black women working in the state's 3-year-old recreational cannabis industry.
"When they came out with (the legalized marijuana industry) it was so disheartening to see how everybody ran for the money and (state leaders) didn't think about the people who had already been punished for this," Parham said. They didn't think about, "How could we make this right with them?"
There's no comprehensive data on how many minorities or women are working in Michigan's cannabis industry. A recent survey by Michigan's Cannabis Regulatory Agency found that of the 460 medical marijuana licensees who responded, 15 self-identified as Black or African American, while 19 of the 485 recreational marijuana licensees who responded self-identified as Black or African American.
When looking at minority representation in the executive ranks at cannabis companies nationwide, about 13% of executive positions at cannabis businesses are held by minorities, according to a 2021 survey by the cannabis publication Marijuana Business Daily.
At the same time as the recreational marijuana industry is growing in Michigan, people continued to be incarcerated across the country for cannabis-related crimes. Even as recently as 2020, Black people were 3.6 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than white people in Michigan, according to an analysis from the American Civil Liberties Union.
Ashley Parks, a co-founder of the Michigan CBD tea company BLK Sapote, said the fact that people are still in prison for marijuana-related crimes while others are profiting off the industry is the "elephant in the room."
"When it comes to cannabis, we're in a state of enterprising now, and we have people who have been incarcerated for years, and generations of families have been impacted directly by the war on drugs," she said. "That needs to be addressed."
The Paste BN Network reached out to several Black cannabis business owners to get their thoughts on the challenges Black entrepreneurs face and their ideas for what needs to be changed to get more Black representation in the industry.
High barriers to entry in the cannabis industry
Rebecca Colett, a co-founder of the Detroit-based cannabis company Calyxeum, points to the expensive and lengthy licensing process as one of the reasons minority representation is low in the cannabis industry. Prospective license holders need to get a prequalification license from the state, a license from the municipality where the business is located and then a license from the state.
Colett said this process can often take a year or two. First, prospective business owners need to find a suitable location. In cities like Detroit, for example, they face strict zoning requirements, which can make finding a property difficult, and when they do actually find a location that works, the price is often high because there are so few properties available. The launch of recreational marijuana sales in Detroit was also significantly delayed after the city had to go back to the drawing board and create a new ordinance, meaning some entrepreneurs may have been sitting on property for years without being able to open their businesses to recreational sales.
One way Colett is trying to help is with the Detroit Cannabis Project, an incubator program to give social equity entrepreneurs the tools and skills needed to open a marijuana business. The state defines social equity entrepreneurs as people from communities that have been disproportionately impacted by marijuana prohibition and enforcement.
The program has been around for two years and has had about 350 Michigan social equity applicants take its courses, such as construction best practices, scaling a business and raising capital.
"I never knew it would grow to be this big but there's definitely a need in our community," Colett said.
Starting a business takes a lot of investment
The reality of the necessity for a lot of investment upfront is made even more inaccessible for entrepreneurs because it's difficult to get a traditional loan for a marijuana business, given that cannabis is still illegal at the federal level.
That means that entrepreneurs either have to raise money from investors or have to self-fund their businesses.
"Black folks haven't had a whole lot of financial success over the last couple hundred years," former Detroit Lions player and 2021 Pro Football Hall of Fame inductee Calvin Johnson said. Johnson co-founded the cannabis company Primitiv with former teammate Rob Sims and they now have a dispensary, a cultivation facility and will soon launch a line of gummies.
"It takes a whole lot of financial stability and it takes a whole lot of money to get started in this industry," Johnson said.
Johnson and Sims faced their own challenges getting started in this industry. They were at first denied medical marijuana licenses in Michigan, with the reason given at the time being some unpaid traffic tickets issued in Atlanta to Johnson that were more than 10 years old. They were later approved for a license.
Black entrepreneurs often face bias
Even as a former professional athlete, Johnson was told when he got into this industry that Black entrepreneurs couldn't sustain a business.
"Why else would they say that, because we're athletes or because we're Black?," Johnson said. "It really doesn't make sense to say that to somebody who has had a whole lot of success on the field. I doubt they would have said that to a person that wasn't (Black)."
Jess Jackson, co-founder of the cannabis-friendly bed and breakfast Copper House in Detroit, said the stereotypes and stigma associated with cannabis are rooted in racism.
"A lot of issues (with the way the industry is viewed) are derived from just a lack of knowledge in upholding a stigma that is truly rooted in racism," she said. "We have to challenge ourselves to be more open to what the opportunities are here, or otherwise our people are not going to benefit and they're going to be continuously left behind."
Contact Adrienne Roberts: amroberts@freepress.com.