After serving within the U.S. Navy, then working in advertising and marketing and gross sales for Fortune 100 firms — adopted by managing political campaigns — Wanda James had no thought the hashish business was the place she’d make her mark.
But it was. She’s entered the annals of black historical past as co-founder of the nation’s first African American-owned hashish dispensary, Simply Pure Dispensary, in Denver, which she launched along with her husband in 2010.
On Saturday, she keynotes Chicago’s first-ever Cannabis Resource Fair.
“I don’t take pride in being the first anything in 2019. Things like ‘first’ and ‘only’ just motivate me to want to open up the floodgates. I mean, it shouldn’t be that way,” stated James, who was named one of many 100 Most Influential People in Cannabis by High Times journal in 2018.
“But if it’s the thing that gets people talking, and if it lets me tell the story of how the cannabis industry has been built on the backs of black and brown people, if that’s what it takes to get people talking about issues with social equity in the cannabis space right now — the fact that we don’t have cannabis ownership — then it’s very empowering.”
James, 56, can be “In Conversation” with Mayor Lori Lightfoot and State Rep. Kelly Cassidy (D-Chicago), who sponsored the Cannabis Regulation & Tax Act within the Illinois House, from 10:15 a.m.-11 a.m. on the honest, which runs 10 a.m.-Three p.m. on the UIC Forum, 725 W. Roosevelt Rd.
Colorado and Washington grew to become the primary states to legalize leisure marijuana by way of poll on Nov. 6, 2012. It took impact in Colorado on Jan. 1, 2014. Illinois grew to become the 11th state to permit it on Jan. 1.
James’ path into the hashish area was by means of divergent careers for each she and her husband, Scott Durrah, a former U.S. Marine and chef.
James was born in Seattle, however with a father within the U.S. Air Force, she was raised overseas. She studied navy science on the University of Colorado, then spent 4 years with the Navy’s Integrated Undersea Surveillance System.
She moved to L.A. and spent a number of years in company America, earlier than assembly Durrah in 1993. In the late ’90s, she moved into politics, managing a number of election campaigns and working for the U.S. Congress herself, albeit unsuccessfully.
The 2000s noticed her managing communications for politicians and teams for causes she believed in — serving on former President Barack Obama’s nationwide finance committee in 2007. The couple returned to Colorado in 2008.
Scott Durrah and Wanda James broke boundaries because the nation’s first African-American homeowners of a hashish dispensary once they based their Denver, Col.-based Simply Pure, in 2010. Provided photograph
After working 5 eating places over time, they noticed a enterprise alternative when the controversy over legalization of medical marijuana, its decriminalization and position in mass incarceration, rose to the forefront. But it wasn’t simply the enterprise alternative that drew them.
“In 1999, I learned my younger brother had been sentenced to 10 years in prison, in Texas, for four ounces of pot. For four years, he picked cotton, before being paroled. And what I learned was that 800,000 people a year are arrested for simple possession — 85 percent of them black and brown boys between the ages of 17 and 24,” James stated.
“It’s because of a privatized prison system. This is America’s new slave platform. I became very angry, and we felt very strongly about opening up a dispensary and putting a political spin with a black face on it. We wanted to be able to draw light to this injustice,” she stated.
In 2010, she opened Simply Pure Edibles. In 2015, newly licensed for leisure marijuana, they opened Simply Pure Dispensary. In 2016, they opened they first cultivation web site. The identical yr, James was named one of many 50 Most Important Women within the Cannabis Industry by Cannabis Business…