Welcome to another episode of Civic Cipher. I'm your host Rams' job.
They call me q Ward and yeah, that's what my mom calls me too.
Yes, indeed, back up India again, what's going on with you.
Q.
Ah Man. Our country, our constituents, our brothers and sisters are people. We are dealing with a lot right now. All at the same time, you know, people trying to
stay warm in areas where that's not typically a thing. Yeah, so that's that's kind of been not just dominating the news cycle, but you know, I know you do, and I have plenty of really good friends down in Texas that are dealing with what we see as a news story as a part of their regular, everyday real life with you know, not just adults, but their babies, you know, their pets, their animals, their families, their in laws. They're dealing with a lot right now. And thank god that
they're starting to have some ah, some eco recovery. The temperatures are starting to rise a little bit to steal cold but livable.
Right exactly exactly, And uh, you know when we were talking about that last week and and just kind of the optics around it, you know, I feel like we were able to help contribute to at h a national demand, media demand for our elected representatives to.
Do better, you know, you know, the greed hope.
So the greed was on full display, the selfishness was on full display.
We don't have to rehash all that, but you.
Know, shout out to capitalism.
You know, we got to do a show on that.
I was talking to a friend and uh, you know, you know that's going to be challenged at some point in the future, so we're going to have to really make our points.
But yeah, shout out to capitalism one time. Well, today we have a very special episode.
You know, for the past couple of episodes, I wanted to do, you know, a little bit more in the way of Black history. And I think that today we're going to be able to talk a little bit about black history. But we also have a couple of special guests in the building. So these guys are from the Arizona Black Cannabis Trade Association, and there's a whole lot that I'm really excited to talk with these guys about. So I want to say, welcome to Jesse mcquarie, how you doing.
Thanks for having me trade.
Of course, and I want to get this right, Chansen Chambers.
Yep, that's right. Okay, all right, thanks for having us.
Yes, of course. And so.
In order to make sure that you know our listeners really know who you are and what the Arizona Black Cannabis Trade Association is, why don't we talk a little bit about how it started, why there was a need for it, and why you know, why it's important.
Okay, I'll get started with that.
So, uh, yeah, I started my adventure in in in the cannabis industry about five years ago. And uh, just like with anything else in uh in Arizona, we uh we just felt the need, uh that's needed within the Arizona for Association to help empower and educate and uh and further our people within the cannabis industry. So I just felt the need, uh to start a organization that helped that.
Okay, that void and specifically uh black cannabis. So the black cannabis. Just to be clear, it's not about a certain color of cannabis strain or anything.
Oh no, no, no, not a cultural companion, yeah for sure, for sure.
Why why was it necessary to have a Black Cannabis Trade Association?
Just with the surrounding events you know, with with Black Lives Matter and everything else that's going on in the world, we just wanted to be specific about what's going on, but not just target basis. It's more for everyone at the same time.
But so with the passage of Prop. Two oh seven in Arizona, there's twenty six to twenty nine dispensary licenses they're going to be issued, and the Department of Health Services is putting out their rules for what it takes to qualify for these licenses that are earmarked as social equity licenses. And so right now in the state of Arizona, there's a lot of discussions going on behind closed doors and down at Department of Health Services about what does
it mean to qualify for a social equity business. And so with the Arizona Black Cannabis Trade Association, the overarching goal is to ensure that those licenses provide opportunities and revenue into communities that have been disproportionately negatively impacted by the War on Drugs and specifically criminalization. So that's that's
really what drove us to focus. You know, I poured up a chance seeing what he was doing, and I felt like it was a really important piece to the equation to make sure that that revenue is getting back into those communities, that those opportunities are really being provided for communities that have been negatively impacted by cannabis criminalization over the last forty fifty years.
Sure, sure, and we definitely want to talk about that, but before we get there, I think that it's it's worth mentioning. You know, I think it's very special and it should be it should be normal, but I recognize it in this world, it's not yet normal that you, Jesse are white.
It's a radio show.
But yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I didn't know that about Jesse.
You didn't know.
No, I was when you just said it, I got confused, but I had to recounib you are white, Yes, yes, I am w I learned something new every day. Man.
The reason that the reason that's special is because.
You know this, or rather this past year twenty twenty has taught us a lot about ourselves and about each other. And you know, I tend to do this, but you know, it's my show, so I get.
I can do it.
You know, we're all brothers and sisters, and I think that last year really taught us, at least some of us approximately half of the more than half of us that you know, we're here together.
We're in this together.
We we we laugh, we feel pain, We you know, we want the best for our future and our posterity, and it's okay to empathize with each other. And one of the things that you know, you and I we talk about all the time is that, you know, last year when we were out on the streets, you know, for all the protests, and we were you know, tuned in into the media in a way that perhaps we
never were before. You know, we saw, of course a lot of black people, a lot of black people writing their stories, you know, making sure that the stories were written the right way.
Empowered powerful voices.
But we also saw a crazy number of allies who looked nothing like us. We saw people from all faiths, all walks of life, many of whom were white folks.
And so I think that it's.
Important, we both think it's important on this show to celebrate allies, brothers you know that may not look like us, but will take time out to help create a world where there's a little bit more fairness, there's bring a little bit more balanced to the universe.
And you know, I know that you know, folks listening don't know the story.
But what happened was you reached out to me through our social media, which by the way, follow our social media at Civic Cipher on all platforms, and you know, mention this Arizona Black Cannabis Trade Association, and you know you were asking about, you know, how can we be involved, how can we support And I think above all else, just kind of letting folks know what you're doing and why this exists. I think that on some level it
empowers other folks to be an ally. It empowers other folks to, you know, take the time out to try to create something that brings a little bit more fairness into the world. So me saying that you're white is not just me saying it. Me saying that in that way is because I think it's it's almost critical. You know, there's you know, we were on the streets last year. I would guess that there was maybe ten percent black
folks out there. Everybody else was all different colors of people all and it was beautiful to see that everyone was like, hey, these.
Deaths are senseless, and you know, there needs to be accountability. These are these lives are precious.
These lives matter, you know, and that's the same energy that I got from our initial interaction. So I thank you for coming up on to the show to talk about the Arizona Black Cannabis Trade Association.
So thank you for having us, I mean, and thank you for welcoming me and putting me in a position to talk about this organization with you know.
With chance.
Sure, sure, absolutely so. You know, one of the things that we.
Didn't get to talk about in the past is that, or rather with respect to black.
History, is.
The way drugs have affected the black community over you know, the centuries or over the decades, not centuries in this country. And you know there was you know, if you do your history, American history, you'll know you'll know that, you know, once upon a time there was an association with Negro jazz and marijuana cigarettes, you know, but there was no real criminalization of that, and once upon a time it wasn't even illegal.
There was a smear.
Campaign that I think was backed by big tobacco once upon a time.
And the government to try to regulate.
Don't hold me to this because I don't know it's not as fresh in my mind, but it was meant to create a means to infiltrate, you know, certain communities, and that's the same thing that has been done more recently. In the eighties especially, one of the things that we didn't get to talk about was the uh, the way
crack made its way into the the country. And I know that we're talking about cannabis, but you know, I think that in talking about the crack epidemic in the eighties, we can begin to understand the way this war on drugs that was enacted under the Reagan administration, if I'm not mistaken, has adversely affected, you know, black and brown communities, overly criminalized, overly policed, and economically disadvantaged further black and
brown communities. And so so that we can kind of continue on with our Black history theme while we still have the chance. For those that don't know, there was a a gentleman by the name of Gary Webb. He was a journalist and he wrote a story about how in the eighties, the CIA helped finance a covert war against Nicaragua's leftist government through the sales of cut ray cocaine in south central Los Angeles.
Through rug dealer.
His name was Ricky Ross. If you know the name Rick Ross. Then you know that Ricky Ross is where Rick Ross got his name from. He was a big time drug dealer and the CIA showed this guy how to make crack cocaine, and you know, that's how that crack epidemic started.
It was funneled directly into black neighborhoods.
And then, you know, we all know the story that a little bit later, you know, the laws were changed and new laws were enacted because this was a new drug that gave harsher sentences. I think it was either three or five times the amount of a sentence for
crack cocaine than it was for just regular cocaine. So if you had crack cocaine, it was just more you get more punished, more harshly, which was exceptionally unfair because those two drugs almost you know, went along the color lines, you know, regular cocaine.
No, not all, They didn't almost go along along in color corrected very very flavorly and very very intentionally drew that line based on the color of the people that were most affected by the different versions of the same right exactly chemical.
And the crazy part about it is that you know, these people were taught how to make it by the government, the same government that's sending them to the prisons for these extended sentences, never recognizing that it's a health issue, only criminalizing, and that led to the further criminalization of black and brown peoples. That led to like a lot of the the expansion of gang activity, the economic empowerment of gangs, which led to more weapons and so forth.
And then you get these ghettos that were created artificially by the government.
But you know, the optics if you don't know.
The story from a suburban white you know person, Look, it looks like, well, if you get all these people together, then they're just gonna act like animals and cages, and we want nothing to do with that. And there's a there's a disconnect where folks don't realize that, you know, a government can pull the strings and create a situation
where that's the outcome. And so, you know, you can see the direct connection between the government and the CIA and them taking advantage of the War on drugs, which was already I think that was right approximately around the time when that was kind of enacted, and the the increase in the prison population, so you know, one of the statistics, so I went last week, and I got some information from the ACLU, and I'll just so we know. According to the ACLU's original analysis, we're gonna talk about
marijuana now. Marijuana arrests now account for over half of all drug arrests in the United States. The eight point two million marijuana arrests between two thousand and one and twenty ten, just as a sample, eighty eight percent were for simply having marijuana. And nationwide, the arrest data revealed one consistent trend, which was a significant racial bias. Despite roughly equal usage rates, Blacks are three point seven three times more likely than whites to be arrested for marijuana.
And that's a function of over policing in black and brown neighborhoods.
And this is all before we get to the sentencing.
So I'm gonna pause here because I wanna talk about why the Arizona Black Cannabis Trade Association, or rather what the Black Arizona Black hender Bistrade Association can do to help.
Write these wrongs in the past.
So, I mean, there's a couple things that correlate to that. The statistics show in Arizona over the last thirty to forty years, that numbers as high as four and a half times, so as a black male in Arizona, if you're part of an interaction with law enforcement that's based around cannabis versus a white male in Arizona, all other things being the same, as a blackmail you're four times more likely to be arrested and spend time in jail
after that interaction. Sure, okay, And that's that's one of the things that when you talk about social equity licensing, and that's that's one of the things that I talk to a lot of people about is just flat out there's a disparity there, and that disparity needs to be addressed, and there's a way right now that we can address that is through these social equity licenses. They're gonna be
issued in Arizona. In terms of ABCTA, one of our first order is a business and one of the things that we're really looking to accomplish is to bring those licensees together and make sure that the resources that are
produced with these businesses that are starting. These are very valuable licenses and there's a lot of revenue generation that goes on and being able to take those and enact education is where I genuinely believe we can start some social change in the right direction, and I think fear of policing is one of the is one of the big things that we can really educate people. What are your rights now now that Prop two O seven has passed, Now that it's legal to have cannabis in your possession
as an adult living in this state of Arizona. Now that it's legal to grow plants on your property at your home, what are those rules actually? You know that you can't just it's not a free for all, right, there's rules about it. And then also on the flip side of things, educating the police force. You know, I'm sure every police officer in the state of Arizona got
a memo, has some briefing. But what is the real interaction that's going on between the communities that are being policed and the police that are policing them and what the rules actually are, what the laws actually are. And I think through ABCTA, we really aim to start the ball rolling getting education into those communities and that's the start of social change. It's taking some of the fear out of policing in the black community.
Sure, good, No, it was just just to follow up what he said, that's the purpose is to get into these communities and educate. It's educated what's going on with the laws, because people within the communities don't know anything about the cannabis laws or what's.
Going on within the cannabis industry.
So our main focus is is to penetrate the community and the least educate them so they know they have rights, you know, and they can and they can move forward from there.
So and I'm glad you mentioned that. There's two things that I want to talk about there. One is the uh, the education. We'll talk about that first. But the other one is the.
Fear that there is. I think that the fear is a two.
Way street too with the black community and the police. And I think that's the two way street because we've seen how afraid the police are. That's been on full display for a very long time. And then of course, historically black people have really had no real rights or
real way of protecting themselves against the place. This is why the Black Panthers, you know, rose to power, you know, was because they were able to police themselves from the police, because the police were the actual terror force in black neighborhoods in Oakland. Once moon a time and around the country. But first, you know, you're absolutely right in terms of information, in terms of you know what these things actually mean.
There's an opportunity here for you to educate me and you because we've never we've never done any marijuana related things or.
Anything like that. So we've always followed the law.
Not that I'm going to, but if I wanted to, like you said, grow something in my house, or if I wanted to if I had something on my person when I interacted with the police, what are some things that you can share with us now at this point that are legal versus illegal or you know, what do I rights look like? Oh?
I'll go first.
So under the old law, which is the medical marijuana Prop. Two six, you're protected to have two ounces and if.
You actually go see a doctor and get to have what's the.
Qualifying medical recommendation, medical recommendations, having a medical marijuana car. So that protects you when you're interacting with the police first of all. So and then under the new law that just passed two seven, it's adult use twenty one, twenty one and over, So anyone that's twenty one and over can possess and have possession up to what a ounce.
One of the key pieces there is that it's for adult personal use. So if you have announce of marijuana on you in your possession, you're interacting with the police. They ask you what you're doing, and your response is, I'm on my way to a party. Me and all my friends are gonna smoke. You've now violated the law. You know, to the letter of the law, you're allowed to possess marijuana for your own personal adult use. And
it's the same thing with growing. You're allowed to grow up to six plants for your own adult use as an adult. You now have the right to make that decision if that's something that you want as part of your life and you want to be able to use marijuana, whether it's cannabis for medical use or whether it's something that you consider recreational social use of marijuana, you now have the right to make that decision as a citizen.
But you can't just plant your entire backyard. Right you have the right to grow six plants, they have to be contained and they have to be locked. And then you know, there's a lot of when it comes to buying from a retail location, dispensaries there's over one hundred dispensaries now in the state of Arizona that have the right to sell to adults twenty one and over. You walk into pretty much any dispenser in Arizona. Now are you a medical patient or are you a wrec patient?
And there's two lines. If you have your medical card, you go to one line. If you're there for recreational purpose, you go to another line. And the reason they do that is it's taxed differently if you're Yeah, so there's restrictions on the concentration of THC in products that are sold to medical patients. And then there's a sixteen percent tax that applies to recreational buyers that doesn't apply to
people that are using their medical marijuana cards. So there's over two hundred thousand medical marijuana cards cardholders in Arizona. They're not going to be taxed an extra sixteen percent on their purchases of their medicine that they've been buying for the last four years or two years, or however long they've been doing it, because this law passed. But that's where the revenue is being generated, is that sixteen percent tax. So they that's where they separate it when
you go into a dispensary. And then you know, when it comes to concentrations to THC for recreational and social purposes, there are some very highly concentrated edibles and concentrates, you know, stuff that is deemed by Department of Health to be these concentrations are for medical use only. These are not for recreational and social use. So one of the big, one of the big thresholds for that right now is ten milligrams per unit when it comes to edibles, and
one hundred milligrams per package. So in most of the dispensaries you'll see a separation of the edibles where these are the medical grade edibles, these are recreational.
I'm gathering that medical grade is something that's more powerful or more.
Yeah, it's generally gonna be more potent, and depending on depending on the medical condition that people are dealing with. You know, the science and medicine, the science behind the medicine, excuse me is is really showing that when you start using cannabis for medical purposes, the general thinking behind it is start low, low dose and work your way up, okay, and kind of kind of figure out where your sweet
spot is for whatever your specific medical need is. Everyone's in no cannabi noised system receives THHC and CBD differently. Everybody has a slightly different tolerance, if you will. Everybody's body responds differently, and so it's it's more art than science when it comes to dosing, and that's one of the big topics of conversations. But the HS is, you know, through a couple of years of research and advisement, they've
sort of made the decision. Okay, when it comes to adult use products, you don't need edibles that are concentrated more than ten milligrams per sure. You know that's that's a fair dosage for adult use medical usage. A lot of a lot of medical patients like the edibles because they don't want to smoke. They found, you know, the way that they do. Some people cut them up micro does,
and there's there's a million different reasons why. But there's a lot of medical patients out there that need just a much stronger dose to deal with the medical ailm at their deal.
Pin Sure, Okay, Well, if you're just tuning into civic ciche from host rams as Josh.
Then call me q ward. That just so happens to be my name, And we.
Are sitting with the Arizona Black Cannabis Trade Association members Jesse mcquarie and Seanson Chambers, and uh, we're talking about some of the.
Things that.
The Arizona Black Cannabis Trade Association is doing to, you know, bring some equity to U two black and brown communities to make up for some of the jest is that the War on drugs has created and the over policing and over criminalization of black and brown people historically by this country.
Real quick, did you want to say something?
Nothing in particular. There's there's a lot that I want to learn, but I don't have any specific questions.
Okay.
So one of the things that I did want to talk about, though, is money. So and I again, I'm not the most educated person when it comes to this, so I'm just gonna talk about what I know and then you guys can educate me. So there's been this conversation that's been happening now that many states are beginning to legalize or create pathways for folks to legally consume
marijuana medically or otherwise. And I remember this is a meme, but I think it reflects the attitude somewhat of the consensus that I've kind of been made aware of over the past few years. And this meme says there was something about this white woman and she's like, oh, whenever I smoke, when I smoke a joint, it makes me
a better mom. And then the response to it was it probably makes black men better dads too, but you keep locking them up, right, So you know, there's this attitude I think that's prevalent, especially in black communities, where it's like, Okay, well now they're changing the laws and you know, these guys can't provide for their families, or they can't relax when they need to or whatever, and then all the good guys are going to look like
they're you know, white, you know, corporate or whatever. And then the bad guys will still look like criminals. And then all the people with all the money, you know, because we want to talk about the money, all the people with all the money are going to be white folks, and all the people who are you know, uh saddled with you know, court debt and you know everything.
Else that poverty and all this sort of stuff.
Fell in their convictions. Yeah, sure, there's.
Still there's and and so what is it that the Arizona Black Cannabis Trade Association is going to do or is planning on what what's the approach with respect to economic inequality or economic empowerment.
I mean, I think it's I think it's almost a two part question because the expungement process and the prison process being you know, we're going to be releasing some some people from prison. One of the one of the other groups that I really really push people to look into is called the Last Prison or Project. That's a that's a nationwide organization and their specific goal is to be there to provide resources until every last nonviolent cannabis offender is released from federal prison.
Real quick, real quick.
Eighty eight percent okay, half all drug arrests, to quote what I said earlier. According to the ACLU, half of all drug arrests in the United States were from marijuana, and eighty eight percent of those almost ninety percent of those were for simply having marijuana.
So, all right, continue, So right now, you know, as the people as yea, as it stands, there's you know, marijuana is still Schedule one. It's still a federally outlawed substance. Sure, and there's over forty thousand people currently incarcerated federally for nonviolent cannabis only offensives. So there's over forty thousand people that are in custody being detained in federal prisons for
nonviolent cannabis only offensive and that's last prisoner project. Their goal is helping with that and then more locally and more specifically through the Arizona Black Cannabis Trade Association. If you or anyone you know is in prison or is in that scenario, is released from prison and has a record, and they need guidance, they need assistance from We've got lawyers that we work with. There's a lot of lawyers in Arizona that are really excited and really passionate about
hoping with that process. From everything we've gathered, from everything we've heard from the state, it's not going to be an extremely labor intensive, it's not going to be a costly process. It's something that people are going to be able to fill out the paperwork, get it to the courts, and get their records exposed. And that's that's a big part of Prop two O seven. And you know, obviously with the stats, it's it's going to be a lot
of people in minority communities that need that assistance. So that's that's really really something that this type of platform people that are listening. You know, if you're in Arizona and you and you need that assistance, you have questions about it, we can guide you to those resources.
That's what we're here for sure.
And and I want I want to make sure that this is this is stated now it's the Arizona Black Cannabis Trade Association, But as you mentioned earlier, you will help other people who are not black too. Oh yeah, okay, so even if you know someone who is not black, you can still receive help. You guys still have the framework for this. This is just created specifically to help black folks, but you.
Will and I'm white.
Yeah, And that's the good thing about the cannabis industry is diverse and you have and it just you know, it brings people together for a good call. So and for me personally, the a b c TA means going out and just being an example to the community.
Okay, you know, Okay, So I want to still talk about the money.
Now before you move on. The Arizona Black Cannabis Trade Association, the National Association for the advancement of colored people, historically black colleges and universities. The Black Panthers. I cannot recall an organization started with black in the title for the very specific purposes of helping and uplifting black people, ever isolating their resources to black people.
Oh yeah, No, I just want to make sure we said it.
I want to make sure I said that too. Yeah, okay, because in most cases, the reason that there's an Arizona Black Cannabis Trade Association and all those other organizations that I said is just because there is a lack of resources to black people, lack of opportunity to black people, lack of access to black people. Not hey, we're just helping black peop Well, no, no, no, no, no. Black people are just in very very severe need of our help. So we want to create something for them in a
lot of cases by them. But every one of the organizations that I just named, the one that was the most radicalized and criminalized of them all the Black Panther Party at Man White People you know Google Rainbow Coalition. Yeah, that part started by the Black Panthers, and the whole idea was uniting as many people as possible to fight against racism, oppression, police brutality, and a long laundry list of other things. So please don't think that the ABCTA
is exclusively helping black people. You know, I think, and I'm speaking assumptively on their behalf, that their whole mission is to help as many people as they can that need them. And I took those liberties without asking them first. But that's just the impression that I got.
That's the energy.
Yeah, generally the way it works. So yeah, thank you for adding that. There's thank you show. Good job dude.
Okay, So another thing I wanted to add to that was that if you're gonna google, you know, we ask you to do your own independent research. If you listen to the show, you know this already google the Rainbow Coalition.
It's a beautiful thing. Last week we were talking about the increase in tax on our Asian brothers and sisters, and we made our show available to anyone who had anything to share, anything any way that we can help them power our Asian brothers and sisters, who have you know, bore the brunt of this previous administration and their racist rhetoric about the China virus and all this sort of stuff. If you've got any pushback and you need to air it out, there's a space.
For you here.
So and in spirit of the Rainbow Coalition, I definitely want you to google that, but also google somebody named Fred Hampton if that doesn't come up in your Google search, and research that man as well.
And you know, we got to do a show on Fred Hampton.
We also have to do one on Malcolm X because you you saw what came out about Malcolm X the police officer. Absolutely yeah, that there was at which we knew the whole time, but you know, to have it actually be admitted by someone who took part in it was.
I guess that's just how it goes.
So we had to wait to have it be formally the truth, whereas before we just kind of just knew it in our bones.
Now I don't want to get too far away from this. The money.
Now, here's how it works, or this is my understanding of how it works. And again, forgive me if I don't have it quite as exact as it should be or I'm not as precise. There are there's definitely one huge company corporation that is getting all the licenses or you know, building the national infrastructure. Think of it as like the next Philip Morris or whatever.
But for cannabis, right, this huge corporation.
And there might be another couple of corporations, and what they do is they will basically build the industry in their image, right where historically, if somebody wanted to get you know, marijuana. This is maybe I'm being stereo, maybe I'm stereotyping, but in my mind, the way it used to work is, hey, I know a guy, let's go to the poor part of town. He's a drug dealer, and they go and they exchange their money. And that was you know, that was a big part of hood economics, if you will.
Right, So, these big corporations are putting these.
Little guys out of business, these little guys who have you know, learned their markets, These little guys who have you know, some of them were botanists themselves, you know, in terms of creating a lot of guys in Los Angeles have been on that tip for a long time.
And other places too.
I know in Michigan and Detroit there's that you know, that's a city where.
New Jack City is about Detroit, Michigan. So if you guys are wondering how the drug industry is in Detroit. Again, Google is free, do your research. A lot of people think that's about New York because that's where it was filmed. The writer the story a true story based on some brothers from my hometown. So yes, Detroit, Michigan, New Jack City.
So as far as these corporations, you know, moving into the community and changing the optics of how marijuana looks and how marijuana is used, and how it's celebrated and how it's you know, how the money moves around it. You know, there's a lot of fear that I've encountered, which is, Okay, well we got beat this thing, beat us, and then these other people are going to co opt it and it's going to be a cash count for them. So speak to those concerns with respect to the abc TA.
Yeah, So I think the bigger picture right now in Arizona is what is that legislation going to look like when they issue those licenses? Okay, when department and it has to be said on a side to a Department of Health Services and the State of Arizona is doing an incredible job right now. Sure, And you know, between COVID and UH they actually implemented mandatory testing in the
cannabis industry to kind of focus on cannabis. Having their hands full with dealing with the pandemic and all the things that they're dealing with, they've done a really, really good job up to this point. So right now they're tasked with they have to decide how these twenty six two twenty nine additional license And to put it in perspective, there's one hundred and thirty licenses currently in the state.
That's licenses for dispensaries.
That are that are dispensary licenses right now that are owned in the state of Arizona. So we're adding twenty six to twenty nine licenses through Prop two O seven for the adult use. They are supposed to be your mark specifically for social equity. They haven't defined what social equity means yet. So this window that we have right now and with chance and I and ABCTA, and there's lots and lots of people out in the world right
now out in Arizona. There was actually a bunch of people down at the state today with a bill that came in front of the Senate. I believe it was SB one one two one that had a bunch of language in it about cannabis and where things were headed and what was going on with all that, and some of the big companies actually helped to say this, this isn't this isn't the best way to proceed with this. And SB one one two one was something that was going to greatly limit the ability of smaller operators to
do well. It was gonna it was gonna limit the types of processes that could be used to extract marijuana. There's a lot of I wasn't there. I haven't read the build I just became aware of it today and I was just on a phone call on the way over here this evening with somebody that was down there trying to get as much information as I could. So I don't I don't have the details, and I don't want to misspeak about it. But when it comes to these twenty six twenty nine licenses, we've got a pretty
small window. There's there's a couple of months when citizens and groups like ours and different people can step up and say these are some processes, these are some policies, these are some things that we'd like to see in place, so that these twenty six twenty nine licenses don't go into the hands of just just the big corporations that are already that are already doing what they're doing. They're doing a good job. And you know, corporations and corporate money.
When it comes to something that's generating this much revenue, that's almost an inevitability, right, excuse me in out of inevitability function. Yeah, yeah, And so you know, our role is to make sure that these things that are supposed to be giving minority communities an opportunity get to those minority communities. And so when it comes to the money, obviously,
that's that's a huge piece of it. These licenses are probably speculatively licenses right now, just just the paper license itself, without any cultivation attached, without a retail space attached to just the paper license itself is probably worth six to eight million dollars. So there is a lot of money on the line, and those corporations aren't just going to turn a blind eye to that money.
Well, I'm curious, why are they so cheap? That's a joke.
Yeah, So, I mean, how do you how do you legislate minority ownership for these licenses to go out? And you know, there's been a lot of speculation. A lot of states have tried to implement different social equity programs, and one of the things that's happened in a lot of places is they've they've done a merit based system where you put a group together, you put your group in front of the government, and you say, this is this is our group that wants to own one of
these licenses. This is why we're qualified, and this is why we should be at the top of the list. And the government has to go through hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of applications and decide who they think deserves essentially a six seven million dollar lottery ticket based on the story that they tell. Now, that's that's a tough ask for the government. That's a tough ask for Department of Health Services. It's already dealing with pandemic and all
these other things. So in Arizona, more than likely there's going to be a checklist. You're going to qualify through your application, and everyone that qualifies and gets a qualified application in is going to be considered a lottery. So they're gonna they're gonna be entered into a lottery, which is the same way that they issued medical licenses, you know, and it worked, okay. So what happens in the other states is they end up getting shooed and government doesn't
want to get sued. They you know, the people that don't get picked, they come back. I think in Illinois there's about a billion dollars in the lawsuits right now that the government's got to you know, fight in court probably for the next ten twelve years. So Arizona wants to avoid that and understandably saw understandably self.
And then with our group, we want to make it easy for him. You know, we want to put those applicants in front of them that that qualify. So since we're connected to the community and we know with me being a native here so we pretty much know the community that's that's been hard by the worm drug. So with ABCTA, that's what that's what we aim to do. Make it easier and communicate with hazy dhs and everyone involved.
So with so in short, the way the money works is.
It's still being what what social equity is is still being worked out. Yes, still being worked out. But the assumption is the operating assumption rather is that somehow or other the cell of marijuana will have a portion of the profits earmarked to benefit economically or otherwise black and brown communities, communities that have historically been wronged by the war on drugs. That's what Yeah, that's what I wanted to make sure that we got out there.
And again, it's you know, it's a it's a difficult puzzle to try and put together for everyone involved.
You know, that's ambitious.
So how do you how do you regulate? How do you legislate what a company does with their profits? Right, and so it's again this small window right now before DHS issues these rules and decides this is what we are defining in the State of Arizona social equity. We've got to stand up and we've got to have a
voice and people have to say this is reasonable. And now, you know, you have to have the money to start the business, and it's it's it's a costly undertaking to build an indoor grow facility to grow medical marijuana or recreational marija cannabis, to supply a retail store is a multi million dollar undertaking. You have to have access to capital, you have to have access to people that understand the process of building that type of facility. You have to have.
There's a lot of security that goes into it, and so you know, it's not just twenty six people who are going to get a seven million dollar lottery ticket. It's it's got to be twenty six groups of individuals that understand the industry, that understand the business, and that
have resources like ABCTA. You know, there's there's other groups in the state of Arizona that are based around cannabis that want to make sure that these groups succeed and have the resources to build their retail location, to build their cultivation, to hire the right staff. But it can't just be the biggest companies that have already done it
ten times. You know, it's got to be opportunities for people that have seen it from a distance that they want to be involved and want to become entrepreneurs, become professionals, become you know, business people in this industry. Whether it's you know, twenty one year old kid and wants to learn how to grow the best pot in Arizona, Let's send them to community college. You know, MESA has an incredible agriculture program down there. Let's send them down there,
put them on scholarship. You know, teach them how to grow the best pot in Arizona and then get them a job at one of these companies. That's that's gotten one of these twenty six licenses. And so that's that's where you can really impact it legislatively and make sure communities are getting opportunities. It's not just handing out twenty six lottery tickets and hoping they do something good with it.
It's education, it's opportunity, it's you know again, the fear of policing and those things all coming together.
So I have a couple of questions. One is from my there's a cynical space in my head that just is always occupy, so forgive me. And another is a more more from an educational place. Are there organizations that are the antithesis to what you guys are doing, like that are going out of their way to kind of squeeze minorities out of that space because they already are in it and they want to own it completely. So that's that's question one.
From a capitalism standpoint, I'm sure that there's companies that it's in their best interests to.
Competition.
Yeah, I mean, but that's it has nothing I don't think I don't think, truly in my heart of ours, that there's an organization in Arizona that's fighting against minorities having opportunities in cannabis. I think there's probably a lot of organizations and a lot of companies that are looking out for their own best interest and are always going to fight to be on top of the mountain, right I mean, that's that's their job as a company, has
to fight to be on top of the mountain. And I think there's probably there's probably certain companies that don't necessarily think about the collateral damage of that, you know what. I mean, every industry that's emerged in America has probably fought that same flight.
You know.
And the second question, and that this is more of a you educating me and our listeners. What would constitute a qualified group? You know, say I had a group of people that wanted to give me some money because they believed in me as a person, and I thought, you know, let me see what it would take to start a company that would be seen as or deemed worthy of receiving one of these licenses or at least a realistic opportunity. What type of capital would it take?
You know, what type of liquid assets, What type of you know, professional background would the applicants have to have if I had a group of individuals or wanted to, you know, reach out to some people I know that are in the alcohol and spirit industry or the nightlife industry that or professional athletes that had the working financial capital, what other type of things and what amounts of money, if you will, What would it take for something like that to be realistic.
So with us, it's about group economics, you know, coming together and pulling our resources together through ABCTA. So if you did have a group, I think a good starting point would be with us since we know pretty much what's going on and we can give you that information and give you solid numbers as far as what's gonna take. So and that's what we're in the process of doing vetting different people want a chance at a dispensary license, you know, because the more we have on board, the
more powerful we are. So we are going to go through a vetting process with you know, with teaming up with other organizations or people that's interesting in being involved in the process.
Yeah, and I mean to kind of address the numbers. That's a question that's asked in almost every single networking event, every zoom that I go to, somebody somebody asked that same question, and nobody really has the answer right now. There's a couple big factors at play. One is how much the application fee itself is going to be, which I think, you know, in reality, I think it's gonna be about twenty five thousand dollars per application, So essentially
it's a twenty five thousand dollars lottery ticket. And that's that's probably the least expensive part of the equation. You're definitely going to need a lawyer services, and there's a couple of law firms here in Arizona that are specifically geared towards cannabis businesses. But you've got to do air tight partnership agreements, You've got to have all of your all of your partners, you got to do background checks
on people, you got it. There's a lot that goes into establishing that application writers are are going to be part of the equation. And then one of the biggest expenses that we're not sure what DHS is going to do. For example, when they were issuing medical marijuana licenses dispensary licenses, you had to have the real estate you had to purchase, You had to own or have a lease agreement on the real estate where your dispensary was going to be, and it had to be zoned. So that obviously is
a huge expense. You know, it's a huge expense to buy a piece of commercial real estate that's zoned for cannabis just to apply. And so DHS hasn't decided, they haven't put out the rules yet whether or not that's going to be part of the equation for social equity applicants, you know, but there's a scenario where you're gonna have to have a six seven, eight hundred thousand dollars a million dollar piece of commercial real estate just to put your application.
And the real estate has to be pre zoned for commercial cannabis.
That's the way they did it with the medical program. Now, whether or not that's going to be part of the equation, that's part of the conversation right now. That's the window that we have is to say, these things are going to lead to more true social equity opportunities for the people to get these licenses. These things are going to lead to the big companies getting their hands on most of them. So we got to kind of decide what direction DHS is going to go. They got to protect themselves.
You know, the last thing anybody in Arizona wants is for twenty six people to end up with these licenses. In five years from now, three dispensaries have open because nobody has the capital or the know how to get them up and running.
Right.
So that's that's a fair question. But it hasn't been answered yet, and we got to wait for DHS.
Okay, I'm also super curious to know, and this might not even be something that exists yet as far as information. Uh, for example, if the four of us started a group, would you disqualify us?
Honestly, I don't know. I don't know. There's there's a lot of things to go into it, and that that questions come up obviously being the white guy as part of the ABCTA board, it's you know, it's a question that I love it.
It's fair, you know, it's I asked that question though, because so you know, my my professional background is mostly in sports. Before I was a DJ, before I got into alcohol and spirits, I represented pro athletes as a marketing agent. A piece of advice that we would give because once upon a time, I'm not sure if this is still true, the federal government would give first right of refusal on let's say government contracts. If you were
a contractor and you were black, you'd have first right refusal. Right, So one of our client's white friends that were in construction would would partner up with his black friend at whatever percentage was necessary to put himself in position to
get that minority first right of refusal. I'd imagine that not someone like yourself, but someone white who saw that as a loophole would say, Okay, well I have some black friends or I know somebody black that I could give enough money to be the face of this so that I could get that license. So that's why I asked that question.
And that's been the problem with a lot of social equity programs that ask Like another states, you know, those big operator raiders are coming in trying to get under someone give them the money, and you know, pretty much just give them a lower percentage of what of what
they're uh what they supposed to be getting. So and that's what's gonna go on here in Arizona, is that we're gonna try that we're gonna prevent that and get the people that's really qualified and work with you know, that's our main thing.
So the thing that makes that tough is that you do have honest people like yourself, where you know, we could honestly be best friends and really have each other's best interest, you know, at the forefront of everything that we're doing. And I think it be that's gonna be hard for them to regulate because I think it'd be unfair for us to be disqualified because my son's godfather, my daughter's
godfather is white, right, you know what I mean. I don't use the person I probably most likely if I was doing something like this go into business with.
I don't anticipate that Arizona DHS is gonna be able to disqualify anyone based on the color of their skin, Okay, I don't. I don't think that that's something that they're gonna that they're gonna wanna try and legislate.
We want to touch that.
Yeah, so other states and their speculation of well, if you grew up in this in this zip code, if you can prove that that's where you lived, and that that's an area of town it was over policed and et cetera, some people want to put forth legislation that if if you've spent time in prison or you've been charged and convicted of a cannabis crime, Okay, now you've got first writer refusal, you're going to the top of
that list. But again, when you start sorting through all the little loopholes and all the little things and people can do to get to the top of that list, and then the state's got to make decisions and assign those licenses, you're talking ten twelve years of lawsuits and expecting an organization like a governmental agency like the HS to sort through all that is a big, big ass. So I think, you know, I think most of the smart money in Arizona right now is that there's going
to be a list of qualifiers. You've got to check all the boxes. You got to have an airtight application. And once once you get to that point, you're it's a ping pong ball and you're pulling for the lottery.
Man.
Yeah, I think the rest of those boxes are harder.
Though.
The money is the easy part, yeah, right, because people are smart and they see, okay, we'll probably make six to eight million dollars doing this. It's easy to give people to get people to invest in something like that. So the money will be the easiest part. I think the other boxes on that on that checklist will be the things that are that are that narrow the pool a bit more than just the money. I think the money, the money part, I think will just keep people who aren't serious from applying.
Yeah, and I think I think that's fair. And a lot of people, a lot of people look at that application fee, Oh well, that's going to disqualify people from applying for socialcation fee.
When he said, then will kind.
Of back that up, like if if you can't put up the twenty five thousand for the application fee, what was your plan for the eight hundred thousand dollars real estate? And and the two and a half million are build out? And then on the back end, you know, you gotta the cultivation is gonna be six or sex, Like, where's that capital coming from? You can't come from zero and expect to acquire that type of asset no matter what industry. It does.
Absolutely, and it's good that there's organizations like the Arizona Black Cannabis Trade Association to educate folks. And I believe in power folks, the folks who need it the most and who have been hurt the most by you know, previous policies, and so of course we can't you know, get into everything. But if if folks have a question for you, if they want to, you know, you guys have social media or any way they can reach out to learn more, be more educated.
Yeah, we're on Instagram, Arizona Black Cannabis, Uh, Facebook, reach out email.
It's Arizona Black Cannabis.
Arizona Arizona Black Cannabis.
All right, and Jesse has anything for folks to.
Reach out to you?
Yeah, I mean, I don't know if it's I can just put my cell phone number out on the air.
If that's you can put it whatever you want your social media.
So yeah, if you want to reach out to me directly, my my number is four eight zero eight eight one two six three seven, And that's always going to be the easiest way to get a hold of me. You know, if if you send an email, Uh, we can definitely, we can definitely get to it that way.
Too, Okay, absolutely, and that's going to do it for us here on Civic Cipher once again, I'm your host, rams Is John.
They called me q Ward and uh.
You know, hit up, Hit us up on our social media again at Civic Cipher, hit the website civic cipher dot com. Submit all your questions, any topics you want us to cover. Download previous shows on all podcasting platforms, and of course, donate, donate, donate, consider becoming a Patreon.
It really helps us out here a lot.
And yeah, Rams, this's Jift for president or mayor at lead.
That's way too much.
But I'm just saying the question.
All right, we'll see that next week