Doers, Makers, and Manifesters: Talking with Cannaclusive founder Mary Pryor

The cannabis industry is failing to deliver its greatest potential for transformative change—economic justice. The so-called “War on Drugs,” initiated by Richard Nixon in 1971, has targeted Black communities in the U.S. for the last fifty years. Black people are arrested for cannabis use alone at four times the rate of white people, despite nearly identical patterns of use, and are more likely to be arrested than white people even in states that have legalized weed. Black people are six times as likely to be incarcerated for drug offenses, and prosecutors are twice as likely to seek mandatory minimum sentences for Black defendants in cases involving drugs, including cannabis. The War on Drugs has cost the country an estimated $1 trillion since the early 1970s; the cost to Black families is incalculable. 

At the same time, the rapidly expanding legal cannabis market is dominated by white—and largely male—entrepreneurs and investors. 

And it’s a huge market. Colorado and California, two of the most established legal weed economies, saw sharp increases in sales in 2020. Colorado reported a 25 percent year-over-year increase in sales, to $2.2 billion. California’s sales for 2020 totalled $4.4 billion, a 57 percent increase over 2019. According to Marijuana Business Daily, sales elsewhere rose steadily, if not as astronomically, and Americans spent a collective $17.5 billion on cannabis in 2020. New businesses, services, and products have emerged as states steadily legalize medical and recreational usage, retail sales, and as the hemp market expands. 

The legacy of half a century of drug policy that targets Black and brown communities has made access to the wealth required to start a cannabis business far more challenging for BIPOC folks. “A lot of the capital needed to be in this business is ruled by white supremacy and white men,” says Mary Pryor, co-founder of Cannaclusive, and chief marketing officer of Tonic CBD and Tricolla Farms. Although state-by-state legalization often includes release from prison and record expungement, in some states people who have been convicted for drug crimes cannot get a license for a cannabis-related business. All of this adds up to a missed opportunity for economic reparation of the many harms of policing around drug sales and drug use. While the available data on cannabis business ownership is outdated, a 2017 industry survey found that less than a fifth of people with ownership stakes were BIPOC, and less than 5 percent identified as Black. In Denver, 30 percent of the population is Latinx, compared to 13 percent of cannabis business owners and 12 percent of industry employees statewide. 

Pryor co-founded Cannaclusive to make entrepreneurial projects in the cannabis space more accessible to people of color, with the idea that these businesses could be a portal to building generational wealth. To counter stereotypes that portray cannabis use as a criminal, marginal, or fringe activity, Cannaclusive created a free library of stock images of BIPOC folks just chilling with a vape, smoking in a low-key setting, or using cannabis medicinally, for companies and media outlets to use. In the summer of 2020, Cannaclusive started The Accountability List, a document that tracks the statements and promises that hemp and cannabis companies have made to communities of color, as well as links to their diversity reports, value, number of employees, and other company details.

“We have 700 businesses and we're trying to get to 2,000 by the end of the year because there are more businesses launching,” Pryor told Free Radicals. “We’re also coming up with two more database projects, and hopefully, we will have a data partner.” Her goal is to expand access to entrepreneurship opportunities for people of color, and also to make it clear which companies consumers can support if equity matters to them.

Pryor has worked in music, fashion, tech, and wellness, and she co-founded Fit for Us, a forum for Black fitness professionals and influencers to talk about representation, and Breaking Bread, a food scarcity non-profit that delivers vegetarian meals and groceries. Still, Pryor considers herself a learner more than a leader: “I'm always kind of looking around like, wait, y'all think I'm a leader? I'm trying to figure this out just like you. I don't consider myself a leader because I'm always still a student, still learning,” 

A fearless digital strategist and an excellent Twitter follow, Pryor connects the dots between different industries and worlds with a clear drive to see access, equity, and representation evolve. Sherrell Dorsey spoke with her about accountability, the parallels between cannabis and tech, and how she keeps moving forward.