1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:03,000
Hey, have you heard the country?

2
00:00:03,000 --> 00:00:04,000
Bush today?

3
00:00:04,000 --> 00:00:05,000
You smoke.

4
00:00:05,000 --> 00:00:09,000
This was going on to our meditation.

5
00:00:09,000 --> 00:00:10,000
Doctor.

6
00:00:10,000 --> 00:00:13,000
Thanks for tuning in everyone.

7
00:00:13,000 --> 00:00:17,000
This week's show is brought to you by the Colorado connoisseurs Cup.

8
00:00:17,000 --> 00:00:20,000
Are you busy this year on New Year's Eve?

9
00:00:20,000 --> 00:00:27,000
There's going to be a Bud Tenders ball at the vibe on New Year's Eve brought to you by the Colorado connoisseurs Cup.

10
00:00:27,000 --> 00:00:33,000
Tickets are not available at the door, so you need to go online to get your tickets.

11
00:00:33,000 --> 00:00:35,000
You can compete.

12
00:00:35,000 --> 00:00:42,000
You can judge for the 2022 connoisseurs Cup or you can bend and showcase your items if you want to get a showcase area.

13
00:00:42,000 --> 00:00:47,000
VIP tables are also available for four going to be lit.

14
00:00:47,000 --> 00:00:52,000
Got your mouth from the loonies is going to be there.

15
00:00:52,000 --> 00:00:57,000
Dab star a couple of other bands.

16
00:00:57,000 --> 00:00:58,000
Can't wait.

17
00:00:58,000 --> 00:01:02,000
Reaper the Reapers going to set up going to interview a few people.

18
00:01:02,000 --> 00:01:03,000
It's going to be a blast.

19
00:01:03,000 --> 00:01:05,000
So make sure you head over to the website.

20
00:01:05,000 --> 00:01:07,000
The connoisseurs Cup dot com.

21
00:01:07,000 --> 00:01:12,000
Get your tickets and welcome everyone to the podcast.

22
00:01:12,000 --> 00:01:13,000
Little farmer, your host here.

23
00:01:13,000 --> 00:01:15,000
I'm here with a special guest.

24
00:01:15,000 --> 00:01:17,000
I'm here with Ernest Tony of Bible can.

25
00:01:17,000 --> 00:01:19,000
He is the owner and founder.

26
00:01:19,000 --> 00:01:24,000
He's here today to tell us a little bit about what he does and where he's taking everybody in the cannabis world.

27
00:01:24,000 --> 00:01:25,000
Welcome Ernest.

28
00:01:25,000 --> 00:01:26,000
How are you today?

29
00:01:26,000 --> 00:01:27,000
I'm doing great.

30
00:01:27,000 --> 00:01:28,000
Thanks for having me here.

31
00:01:28,000 --> 00:01:29,000
Cool.

32
00:01:29,000 --> 00:01:36,000
So could you let the people out there know exactly what BIPOCAN is and how you came up with the idea?

33
00:01:36,000 --> 00:01:38,000
Yeah, absolutely.

34
00:01:38,000 --> 00:01:39,000
Yes.

35
00:01:39,000 --> 00:01:41,000
So started the organization in 2020.

36
00:01:41,000 --> 00:01:49,000
BIPOCAN is a national cannabis business membership organization and consulting firm.

37
00:01:49,000 --> 00:02:00,000
And what we are doing is trying to make the industry more accessible and profitable for minority entrepreneurs, professionals and social equity applicants and operators.

38
00:02:00,000 --> 00:02:06,000
I started the organization, like I said, in 2020 amidst the pandemic.

39
00:02:06,000 --> 00:02:11,000
There's also a ton of social unrest happening in the country.

40
00:02:11,000 --> 00:02:16,000
I had been working for marijuana business daily at the time.

41
00:02:16,000 --> 00:02:28,000
So if you're familiar with them, they're the industry's largest cannabis business publication for the retail and medical industries in the U.S. and Canada.

42
00:02:28,000 --> 00:02:34,000
They also host MJ BizCon, the industry's largest cannabis business conference and expo.

43
00:02:34,000 --> 00:02:39,000
I had worked for them for a couple of years on marketing and partnerships.

44
00:02:39,000 --> 00:02:53,000
And I felt like I was in a position where I had traveled not only across the U.S., but across the multiple countries, meeting people who were interested in these new cannabis markets and industry taking shape.

45
00:02:53,000 --> 00:03:01,000
And I guess what I saw was that there was not a whole lot of diversity in those rooms, in business ownership and leadership.

46
00:03:01,000 --> 00:03:09,000
And 2020 was just that time where I think everybody sort of paused and was trying to reflecting on what life looks like.

47
00:03:09,000 --> 00:03:21,000
For me, it was how can I spend my time, energy, efforts to do something for good, to help communities that I was tied to and felt strongly about.

48
00:03:21,000 --> 00:03:36,000
So when I started BIPOC, I had no idea that it was going to be a business. I just know that I was in a position where I could help people get in, get connected, maybe make it easier for them to have some success in business.

49
00:03:36,000 --> 00:03:38,000
And that's how I got started.

50
00:03:38,000 --> 00:03:42,000
So, yeah, you were told me that you grew up in what state again?

51
00:03:42,000 --> 00:03:43,000
In Virginia.

52
00:03:43,000 --> 00:03:45,000
Virginia. I wondered the second time.

53
00:03:45,000 --> 00:03:53,000
Virginia, I'm from West Virginia, so we're not too far apart. And you said that your father was a correctional officer or somebody in your family was a correctional officer growing up.

54
00:03:53,000 --> 00:03:59,000
And then you noticed a correlation of some of your neighbors and friends getting locked up.

55
00:03:59,000 --> 00:04:04,000
And could you explain that to the listeners out there? Like you explained it to me.

56
00:04:04,000 --> 00:04:05,000
Yeah, yeah.

57
00:04:05,000 --> 00:04:10,000
Some kind of the reason you got into cannabis, I believe, or at least that's the way I understood it.

58
00:04:10,000 --> 00:04:22,000
Yeah, you know, it's funny because like I think that definitely played a role, you know, thinking about my background, where I came from, some experiences there, you know, when it came time for me to start my organization.

59
00:04:22,000 --> 00:04:28,000
But a little bit of background. I grew up in a small town in rural Virginia. It's called Farmville.

60
00:04:28,000 --> 00:04:34,000
When I grew up, I think the population was around 6,000. Maybe there's 7,000 people there now, something like that.

61
00:04:34,000 --> 00:04:47,000
But, you know, it's about an hour away from Richmond, out in the country. It has, you know, pretty poor, poor county when I was growing up for sure.

62
00:04:47,000 --> 00:04:56,000
And it also is a unique place that sits at the center of some of America's major civil rights moments.

63
00:04:56,000 --> 00:05:04,000
Literally, the county seat is about 15 miles away from Appomattox County, and that's where the Civil War ended.

64
00:05:04,000 --> 00:05:19,000
But also, you know, back in the 1950s, there was a whole lot of issues in that town where, you know, related to segregation and racism.

65
00:05:19,000 --> 00:05:33,000
And back in the 50s, there was a student-led walkout at the Black Public School on account of the poor and inferior conditions of the school.

66
00:05:33,000 --> 00:05:36,000
It was very overcrowded and unsafe, things like that.

67
00:05:36,000 --> 00:05:56,000
But anyways, like that movement was actually one of the key pieces of the Brown v. Board of Education case, which outlawed segregation, you know, public segregation of education in the U.S.

68
00:05:56,000 --> 00:06:09,000
And my town, as a response to that, they didn't want to integrate, so they removed funding to close the Black School. And for a period of close to a decade, there was no options for education.

69
00:06:09,000 --> 00:06:18,000
So if you were a person of color, if you were a poor white person, you couldn't go to school. The only option was private school.

70
00:06:18,000 --> 00:06:37,000
I give all that background because, you know, when you remove opportunities for people to get education and have access to, you know, things that's going to improve their upward mobility, then those effects follow you, follows your families for several decades.

71
00:06:37,000 --> 00:06:51,000
And I don't think it's a coincidence that there was a whole lot of people trying to figure out how they can make a living, and there's likely an increase in, you know, cannabis distribution and sales.

72
00:06:51,000 --> 00:07:00,000
A response to that was a correctional facility was brought to our town. And when I was five, my father started working there as a security officer.

73
00:07:00,000 --> 00:07:15,000
And over his 25 years working there, you know, he moved up the ranks all the way up to administration. That correctional facility ended up being one of the biggest job creators and revenue producers for that town and the surrounding six counties.

74
00:07:15,000 --> 00:07:37,000
But it was also, I also saw how it was sending people from my community behind bars. So I knew the people who work behind the scenes there, and I got to see exactly like how, you know, the private, you know, prison industrial complex was, you know, making money.

75
00:07:37,000 --> 00:07:52,000
But I also saw how it was sending neighbors, family, friends to be behind bars. And it was interesting because at one point when my dad was working in administration, he had three older siblings who were locked up there.

76
00:07:52,000 --> 00:08:01,000
And when I would go home, or actually when I would leave school to go to the jail, I would see one of my uncles out there pretty much every day.

77
00:08:01,000 --> 00:08:12,000
You know, he was on work release, but he's in his orange juncture suit, and I'd say hi to him and then immediately walk inside the building and see my dad and, you know, like his boss and people from the county and things like that.

78
00:08:12,000 --> 00:08:18,000
So it's like I knew the people who worked there and the people who were, you know, getting locked up.

79
00:08:18,000 --> 00:08:41,000
And I think what I saw is that a lot of folks from my neighborhood were the ones that were getting, you know, targeted for cannabis possession because when I go across the street or a couple miles away to the suburbs, I knew plenty of people they used, but you never saw the police, you know, stopping by and, you know, interrupting their daily activities.

80
00:08:41,000 --> 00:08:55,000
So yeah, I have seen that in the country of West Virginia too, from a small town country, West Virginia, and a lot of poor whites and minorities were getting locked up and targeted, just as you were saying.

81
00:08:55,000 --> 00:09:02,000
Some of the listeners out there don't actually know what social equity is. Could you explain what social equity is real quick?

82
00:09:02,000 --> 00:09:26,000
Yeah, you know, we're sort of talking, so what you and I were just talking about, you know, where we grew up, sort of experiences that we've seen, and even if you think of just a history with cannabis, going back to like the 1920s with Henry Anslinger and, you know, the reefer madness, you have all of this negative propaganda.

83
00:09:26,000 --> 00:09:53,000
And then you have the 70s and it was Nixon leading the war on drugs, really, and you know, people in his administration came out years later and said that this was actually the war on drugs was a covert way for them to essentially, you know, target black and brown communities, you know, get those, you know, trying to basically find ways to reduce their options in society to lock them up.

84
00:09:53,000 --> 00:10:14,000
The war on drugs was not really war on drugs. It was a war on race and poverty. And so social equity is this, you know, philosophy that's about justice and fairness. It's about trying to make sure that there is equality and access to things.

85
00:10:14,000 --> 00:10:33,000
The cannabis industry is an interesting one because, you know, now you have this regulated industry, the first adult use or recreational legal industry or market was in Colorado, you know, where we are.

86
00:10:33,000 --> 00:10:49,000
That was formed in 2014. So you have this very new legal cannabis industry that has generated billions of dollars in revenue off of legal cannabis sales.

87
00:10:49,000 --> 00:11:03,000
At the same time, you have over 40,000 people who have been, you know, who are behind bars for simple cannabis possession and use. The majority of those people behind bars are poor people and people of color.

88
00:11:03,000 --> 00:11:24,000
So the same people who are more the most likely to be convicted and arrested and sentenced for possession, despite the fact that there's not really any much difference in usage between them and their white counterparts, they're the ones who are most likely to pay the price for cannabis in the first place.

89
00:11:24,000 --> 00:11:37,000
They're also the least represented demographics in the industry. You know, you can see across the board that there's less than 4% like black and brown ownership and businesses in the cannabis industry.

90
00:11:37,000 --> 00:12:04,000
So that is a problem when you see that this very new industry, which is generating billions of dollars, is not actually creating revenue or opportunities for the exact same demographics that are still locked up or who have been most affected because of cannabis prohibition by the war on drugs for the past several decades.

91
00:12:04,000 --> 00:12:19,000
Social equity is supposed to level that playing field. It is supposed to create equitable access and business ownership for individuals from those communities who have been directly impacted.

92
00:12:19,000 --> 00:12:32,000
So people who have maybe gone through the criminal justice system because of cannabis possession, if they choose to start a business in cannabis, the social equity program is a way to give them that access.

93
00:12:32,000 --> 00:12:45,000
They've already had so much taken away from them. We talked about some of those residual effects that happened in a lot of poor communities like in the US.

94
00:12:45,000 --> 00:12:57,000
You remove a father, a mother, family figure from the household because of cannabis conviction. Those people can't make money. That's less income that's coming in.

95
00:12:57,000 --> 00:13:14,000
That family wants to, someone from that family wants to start a business, but they don't have like the decades of working and the capital to start a business because the law, in the first place, is what put them behind bars.

96
00:13:14,000 --> 00:13:20,000
Then they're even farther behind if they actually want to pursue that dream. Social equity programs can help mitigate some of those barriers.

97
00:13:20,000 --> 00:13:27,000
That's just the idea. Thanks for bearing with my long-winded answer.

98
00:13:27,000 --> 00:13:39,000
We actually met at a social equity meeting down at the Tetra Lounge. You spoke. That was after I had already tried to set up a dispensary, lost a lot of money.

99
00:13:39,000 --> 00:13:51,000
That's when I had switched to my website, moving more to an advocate myself and trying to find another niche into the cannabis community or the cannabis industry.

100
00:13:51,000 --> 00:14:07,000
Some of the things that you said at the meeting really struck. Could you kind of repeat some of those things? How much it costs to get into the industry? What are some of the barriers there? What are some other options? What does it bring to your community?

101
00:14:07,000 --> 00:14:16,000
How many different jobs have you seen that are brought in just because of the cannabis industry, but you're not actually in the dispensary selling way, but growing?

102
00:14:16,000 --> 00:14:25,000
Yeah, absolutely. I'll try to touch on some of those. A few minutes ago, I shared that we have in the US this $30 billion cannabis market.

103
00:14:25,000 --> 00:14:39,000
Just in Colorado, in the first eight years of legal sales, there's been over $12 billion in revenue generated between 2014 to 2021 through legal cannabis sales.

104
00:14:39,000 --> 00:14:50,000
Now, we're using those numbers. Those are big numbers, but that's really just a small percentage of the overall economic impact that these industries bring.

105
00:14:50,000 --> 00:15:04,000
Usually, when people are thinking, well, in the past, like when people learned that I was working in the industry, I'd probably say 90% of the time, people would reach out to me and they'd say, I'm surprised that you're working in cannabis. You're the last person I thought would do that.

106
00:15:04,000 --> 00:15:09,000
Or there would be people who say, Ernest, how do I get a license?

107
00:15:09,000 --> 00:15:21,000
For the people that were interested in getting a license, start asking questions and you realize that I think a lot of times people think that getting that license is going to be like this lottery ticket.

108
00:15:21,000 --> 00:15:28,000
It sounds like a fun thing to do. Having your own cannabis business, state license regulated one.

109
00:15:28,000 --> 00:15:36,000
But when you remove that veil and look at just the challenges to even get to that point, it's huge and it's costly.

110
00:15:36,000 --> 00:15:46,000
I mean, you're talking about one of the most regulated industries out there. Cannabis is still Schedule I due to the Controlled Substance Act.

111
00:15:46,000 --> 00:15:57,000
There are a ton of implications with that. It's not fully legal. We have a whole lot of stigma associated with it. You can't access basic banking right now.

112
00:15:57,000 --> 00:16:14,000
But beyond that, because of its Schedule I status, if you were to start a licensed cannabis like dispensary or cultivation, then there's a thing within the U.S. Tax Code called Section 280E.

113
00:16:14,000 --> 00:16:30,000
And part of that tax code prevents you from writing off certain expenses for the sale of products or for businesses that are not fully legal.

114
00:16:30,000 --> 00:16:39,000
That creates some real issues for cannabis businesses because there's a lot that they can't write off and costs of good souls.

115
00:16:39,000 --> 00:16:50,000
So it's not an exaggeration, but there are some cannabis businesses, some dispensaries, that are paying up to 70% in taxes because of that inability to do write off.

116
00:16:50,000 --> 00:16:57,000
So we're talking about federal tax, state tax, excise taxes. In addition to that, it's a capital intensive business.

117
00:16:57,000 --> 00:17:06,000
I mean, you have to not only raise a lot of money, I mean, probably well over a million dollars and even higher depending on the market that you're in,

118
00:17:06,000 --> 00:17:12,000
just to support the operation and everything that you need in order to open up those doors.

119
00:17:12,000 --> 00:17:18,000
We've seen a whole lot of issues with cannabis licenses after they get allocated.

120
00:17:18,000 --> 00:17:22,000
A lot of times that might be, they might be mired in litigation and lawsuits.

121
00:17:22,000 --> 00:17:30,000
So even in places like Illinois, when there was this promise to bring social equity to the state, licenses were awarded.

122
00:17:30,000 --> 00:17:37,000
There was a lot of issues with how they were awarded.

123
00:17:37,000 --> 00:17:44,000
And then you had lawsuits which prevented those licenses from being functional for close to two years.

124
00:17:44,000 --> 00:17:54,000
Now, if you have a license and you're planning to open up a business and you can't because you have to pay rent on a facility for two years,

125
00:17:54,000 --> 00:18:04,000
those are other hidden costs that many license holders have experienced.

126
00:18:04,000 --> 00:18:12,000
I know that that has been a reality for people in some of the early markets too.

127
00:18:12,000 --> 00:18:22,000
I remember Dr. Shonda Masias, who runs Alera Holistic out in D.C.

128
00:18:22,000 --> 00:18:33,000
I remember hearing her speak about how she had found a landlord, said that she was going to open up a cannabis facility,

129
00:18:33,000 --> 00:18:37,000
went through a whole lot of struggles to actually get the license when it was finally awarded,

130
00:18:37,000 --> 00:18:47,000
ran into some issues with that landlord not wanting to allow the business to actually function, change his mind,

131
00:18:47,000 --> 00:18:53,000
and then her paying rent for a year and a half on a building.

132
00:18:53,000 --> 00:18:57,000
It's just a whole lot of complications.

133
00:18:57,000 --> 00:19:01,000
Something really similar happened in West Virginia where I went back home.

134
00:19:01,000 --> 00:19:03,000
They were supposed to open a dispensary in my hometown.

135
00:19:03,000 --> 00:19:10,000
It was the only person in West Virginia who was from West Virginia that was awarded a license.

136
00:19:10,000 --> 00:19:15,000
So you sum up a quarter of a million dollars and they had three licenses to open three dispensaries.

137
00:19:15,000 --> 00:19:21,000
In one town, he couldn't find a place to rent because it was zoned.

138
00:19:21,000 --> 00:19:24,000
He couldn't get in three times the rent.

139
00:19:24,000 --> 00:19:31,000
Or it was just couldn't do the codes, couldn't get the walls high enough around it or something.

140
00:19:31,000 --> 00:19:33,000
In the other town, he even bought a building.

141
00:19:33,000 --> 00:19:34,000
It was great.

142
00:19:34,000 --> 00:19:40,000
Right across from a church, the Methodist church was fighting against if we were allowed to go in.

143
00:19:40,000 --> 00:19:46,000
The third one, he couldn't get the building all the time so he never got one put up, I think,

144
00:19:46,000 --> 00:19:49,000
with all the costs and he lost all his money.

145
00:19:49,000 --> 00:19:56,000
Yeah, I've heard so many stories that are similar with people putting in their life savings,

146
00:19:56,000 --> 00:19:58,000
borrowing funds, taking out loans.

147
00:19:58,000 --> 00:20:03,000
They might want a license and think that's their lottery ticket and they're just beginning.

148
00:20:03,000 --> 00:20:11,000
But you asked me another question. You talked a little bit about how now we met and you had recently decided

149
00:20:11,000 --> 00:20:14,000
that you were going to pivot after not being able to get that license.

150
00:20:14,000 --> 00:20:21,000
So doing more work on the advocacy side, even running this podcast,

151
00:20:21,000 --> 00:20:25,000
trying to figure out other ways that you could still participate in the industry.

152
00:20:25,000 --> 00:20:32,000
That has been something that I've been trying to educate a lot of folks about over the past couple of years.

153
00:20:32,000 --> 00:20:38,000
As I was saying, when I got my start in the industry back in 2018 working for MJ Biz,

154
00:20:38,000 --> 00:20:42,000
we'd go out and host these major events.

155
00:20:42,000 --> 00:20:46,000
In Vegas, in 2019, I remember over 32,000 people being there.

156
00:20:46,000 --> 00:20:52,000
Well, having over a thousand exhibitors on the floor, those are not all cannabis companies.

157
00:20:52,000 --> 00:20:58,000
Most of them, probably 80, 90 percent, are providing some type of service to support the industry.

158
00:20:58,000 --> 00:21:05,000
So you may call that an ancillary business, something that is adjacent to the plant.

159
00:21:05,000 --> 00:21:12,000
It doesn't directly touch the plant, but it is something that's critical to the supply chain or provides a service that a business owner could use.

160
00:21:12,000 --> 00:21:15,000
And that's where I see a ton of opportunity existing.

161
00:21:15,000 --> 00:21:22,000
And when I was talking about, I was using that number earlier, we were saying, OK, Colorado has generated $12 billion in the first seven years.

162
00:21:22,000 --> 00:21:25,000
The market is worth $30 billion at the moment.

163
00:21:25,000 --> 00:21:27,000
We're just looking at a piece of the puzzle.

164
00:21:27,000 --> 00:21:39,000
We're not talking about how much money are the lighting companies that sell the products make or how much are could you potentially make as an accountant or a general contractor in this industry?

165
00:21:39,000 --> 00:21:51,000
I mean, if you think about if you were to think about this industry as any other type of industry, what are you know, every industry needs certain types of services.

166
00:21:51,000 --> 00:21:59,000
So I think a lot of times people get really laser focused on trying to get that license so they can own and operate dispensary.

167
00:21:59,000 --> 00:22:11,000
And I definitely don't want to deter anyone from that, you know, especially like, you know, if that's your dream and you want to go after it and you have the connections and the means to make that happen, you know, go for it.

168
00:22:11,000 --> 00:22:20,000
At the same time, I just want to make sure that people are aware that there are a ton of other ways that you can directly be involved in this industry, too.

169
00:22:20,000 --> 00:22:28,000
That's one of the things that I haven't seen like social equity really touch from like a policy or program aspect.

170
00:22:28,000 --> 00:22:34,000
I mean, so much of it is about, OK, let's create access to licenses for plant touching businesses.

171
00:22:34,000 --> 00:22:48,000
But, yeah, it would be pretty cool if there was like some programs out there that could also tackle like the minority business ownership problem by by also being able to support some of these services,

172
00:22:48,000 --> 00:22:53,000
ancillary businesses that that also touch the industry.

173
00:22:53,000 --> 00:22:59,000
So, yeah, there's really hundreds or thousands of different ways to be involved.

174
00:22:59,000 --> 00:23:05,000
But delivery packaging logos.

175
00:23:05,000 --> 00:23:07,000
One of the biggest thing is compliance.

176
00:23:07,000 --> 00:23:13,000
If you're anybody into compliance, you can help a business stay in track because there's so much things that you have to comply with.

177
00:23:13,000 --> 00:23:23,000
So many rules, so many laws, lawyers, anybody. There's tons and tons of opportunities within the industry without owning the license, like you said.

178
00:23:23,000 --> 00:23:27,000
Yeah, absolutely. And my business is an example of that, too.

179
00:23:27,000 --> 00:23:38,000
You know, like I said, we are trying to remove some of the obstacles for people to get into the industry, to start their business, to make referrals and connections.

180
00:23:38,000 --> 00:23:46,000
And, you know, we are forming some strategic partnerships with local operators, some multistate operators.

181
00:23:46,000 --> 00:23:59,000
We are working with cannabis companies, cultivators, delivery, you know, manufacturers and everybody there like needs some type of assistance.

182
00:23:59,000 --> 00:24:08,000
Obviously, like capital is like the biggest thing that has been the biggest barrier for everybody, quite frankly, in this industry over the past couple of years.

183
00:24:08,000 --> 00:24:23,000
But, you know, even beyond that, like our service is one that is trying to help the business owner figure out, like, the tools and resources they need to enter and to grow their business.

184
00:24:23,000 --> 00:24:31,000
So you are not only in Denver, you said you're national. So I know you have an office in Virginia, you mentioned Massachusetts.

185
00:24:31,000 --> 00:24:41,000
A lot of new states showing up. If anybody wanted to get involved or get in contact with you, how would they go about getting in touch with you?

186
00:24:41,000 --> 00:24:56,000
Yeah, so you can check out the website, BIPOCANN.com. It's B-I-P-O-C-A-N-N.com. I'm also easy to find on LinkedIn.

187
00:24:56,000 --> 00:25:04,000
You know, you can search for the business. You can just search for me. My name is Ernest Tony. T-O-N-E-Y. Those are two ways to find me.

188
00:25:04,000 --> 00:25:15,000
We can be in touch that way. I will say, yes, we are, you know, I'm headquartered out here in Colorado, Denver metro area, and that's where we have like our biggest footprint.

189
00:25:15,000 --> 00:25:25,000
But I started, you know, BIPOCANN, not because this was like diversity and representation was not because it was an issue that was unique to Colorado.

190
00:25:25,000 --> 00:25:38,000
I mean, this is going to be an issue. This is an issue that's unique everywhere in, you know, the legal cannabis industries and especially as new states come on board.

191
00:25:38,000 --> 00:25:50,000
You know, you're going to have a lot of people who have been following the industry. They might be aware of it. They're trying to figure out, OK, is there a pathway for me? Is there an opportunity for me?

192
00:25:50,000 --> 00:25:59,000
You know, we can be a resource there, too, because of, you know, what we do here is not really unique to one specific place.

193
00:25:59,000 --> 00:26:11,000
We have members in multiple states. I'd say our biggest presence right now is here in Colorado, Virginia, Illinois, and some of the mid-Atlantic states.

194
00:26:11,000 --> 00:26:16,000
So, but yeah, we're just trying to help as many people as we can.

195
00:26:16,000 --> 00:26:22,000
So one last thing here. I know we're short on time. It's a busy Monday.

196
00:26:22,000 --> 00:26:31,000
Do you have any advice for people in new states that are becoming legal or states that are already legal to promote the social equity there?

197
00:26:31,000 --> 00:26:38,000
Who do they need to contact or what are some things they should do or look out for or something to avoid?

198
00:26:38,000 --> 00:26:46,000
When you're saying that they're the social equity acts are coming up, but then they're difficult to actually get into motion. I've seen that happen here.

199
00:26:46,000 --> 00:26:52,000
Even a delivery company started up, but nobody will use them to deliver.

200
00:26:52,000 --> 00:27:06,000
And they're not taken off. Is there anything that you can recommend for these people to look out for and to contact their politicians or whatever and to make sure it doesn't happen in the beginning?

201
00:27:06,000 --> 00:27:11,000
Or so they can change the laws? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks for that.

202
00:27:11,000 --> 00:27:22,000
I mean, they're so like, I think anytime you want to start in these new markets, there are usually a lot of challenges.

203
00:27:22,000 --> 00:27:29,000
There's gonna be a challenge like every time you want to start a regulated cannabis industry in a new place.

204
00:27:29,000 --> 00:27:41,000
Colorado is unique. I mean, we, for all intents and purposes, we weren't the first medical market, but we were the first state legal market.

205
00:27:41,000 --> 00:27:49,000
We were the first to try to create a framework for I think what has been modeled in other states.

206
00:27:49,000 --> 00:28:02,000
And I know a lot of eyes were out here on Colorado because this is sort of ground zero for this regulated industry, which is less than a decade old.

207
00:28:02,000 --> 00:28:10,000
Colorado started this market and social equity was not at the forefront of it.

208
00:28:10,000 --> 00:28:29,000
I mean, I think back then, I mean, I've talked to people who were involved with creating this first market and I believe that their interests were how can we show that this is a viable market and it creates a ton of opportunities.

209
00:28:29,000 --> 00:28:31,000
And it has like a lot of benefits.

210
00:28:31,000 --> 00:28:40,000
And I think by the time Colorado got to trying to address social equity, you had a lot of places like in Denver, which were already saturated.

211
00:28:40,000 --> 00:28:45,000
It's probably the most competitive market in the world.

212
00:28:45,000 --> 00:28:54,000
You know, if people don't want to find dispensary retail locations, there's issues with expenses, availability, zoning.

213
00:28:54,000 --> 00:29:06,000
I think that these newer states are at an advantage because, you know, they actually have, they can look to blueprints, they can look to frameworks, they can see what worked and what didn't work.

214
00:29:06,000 --> 00:29:11,000
And that has the potential to be more advantageous.

215
00:29:11,000 --> 00:29:29,000
With regards to social equity, you know, I think there are some places that are, that are, you know, trying their best, but I feel like what needs to happen in these new places is you have to like, you have to make sure it's not happening in a vacuum.

216
00:29:29,000 --> 00:29:34,000
So, you know, a place in the South decides that they want to start a social equity program.

217
00:29:34,000 --> 00:29:37,000
Well, there needs to be a lot of stakeholders in that room.

218
00:29:37,000 --> 00:29:43,000
I mean, you need to have some people who have, who have done it.

219
00:29:43,000 --> 00:30:00,000
You need to have, you know, people who can also communicate that social equity is, is more than solving, you know, social issues, but it's also a health and an economic issue too.

220
00:30:00,000 --> 00:30:14,000
I think that there, I know that there are some folks like back in my home state or my native state of Virginia that won't even entertain the conversation of social equity because of the way it sounds, because they don't understand it.

221
00:30:14,000 --> 00:30:22,000
They don't want to acknowledge that so much of this industry was directly tied to like, like I said, this war on racism and poverty.

222
00:30:22,000 --> 00:30:33,000
But you have some of those folks that might own farmland and care about, you know, creating a new economic center, an economic agricultural center.

223
00:30:33,000 --> 00:30:46,000
And I think you shift the conversation of those folks to say, how can we find ways to use this as a tool that can create businesses for, you know, communities that have been impacted for underrepresented people?

224
00:30:46,000 --> 00:30:49,000
So I'm being very theoretical here.

225
00:30:49,000 --> 00:30:57,000
What I really, what I really think is like in these new markets, you need to have, you know, some people, you know, some advocates who've been there.

226
00:30:57,000 --> 00:31:02,000
You need to have, you know, people who have been directly impacted at the table.

227
00:31:02,000 --> 00:31:23,000
So, you know, just recently hosted an event where we brought together about 20 social equity applicants and operators and we had some, you know, my organization and two other advocate organizations, Minorities for Medical Marijuana and Marijuana Matters.

228
00:31:23,000 --> 00:31:45,000
We had conversations to figure out, okay, well, what were the challenges? What are the ideas where we can work together? How can we create, you know, some pressure in such a way that we can get the legislators and the policymakers to create laws and policies that will actually benefit us.

229
00:31:45,000 --> 00:31:49,000
And we had state regulators in the room to listen.

230
00:31:49,000 --> 00:31:59,000
So we need to have real honest, hard conversations with people that are in a position to do something about it in a room.

231
00:31:59,000 --> 00:32:01,000
I'm happy to be a resource.

232
00:32:01,000 --> 00:32:08,000
And if I'm not the right person, I know the right people, so I can, I can, I can be a resource that way too.

233
00:32:08,000 --> 00:32:14,000
The advice I got is people need to talk about it more instead of being afraid to talk about it.

234
00:32:14,000 --> 00:32:22,000
Just communicate, get it out there. Another one, just try to make sure that the states aren't limited to only four or five operators.

235
00:32:22,000 --> 00:32:31,000
Make it open to more local people. Make sure that they're involved. People can get a license if they're in that state and local, locals.

236
00:32:31,000 --> 00:32:36,000
And make sure the taxes aren't too high. I've noticed that the tax relief is up to 75%.

237
00:32:36,000 --> 00:32:46,000
And if you're adding all these taxes up, it just makes it so expensive and so hard for anybody to get started unless you already have a couple million dollars.

238
00:32:46,000 --> 00:32:51,000
And a lot of these people don't know much about cannabis and they're just investing money.

239
00:32:51,000 --> 00:32:57,000
And when you don't know much about cannabis, you got to have love for the planet. You got to have, take care of it.

240
00:32:57,000 --> 00:32:59,000
Yeah, you're right about that.

241
00:32:59,000 --> 00:33:10,000
And I'm glad you brought that tax, those last two points, because I think too many people, I think it's easy.

242
00:33:10,000 --> 00:33:25,000
So a lot of times when people get your elected officials, okay, they're not necessarily, they're not going to be experts in cannabis policy.

243
00:33:25,000 --> 00:33:32,000
You might have some, like one or two, but in general, like, I mean, I remember when I was paying attention to some of the conversations that were happening in Virginia,

244
00:33:32,000 --> 00:33:42,000
and people were coming up with ideas about trying to treat that market like the same way you would like the regulated alcohol market.

245
00:33:42,000 --> 00:33:47,000
And it's not the same. It doesn't have, it doesn't carry the weight. It doesn't carry the history.

246
00:33:47,000 --> 00:33:55,000
And you're also not dealing with a substance that is under control substance acts.

247
00:33:55,000 --> 00:34:04,000
So I think a lot of times, you know, people don't understand the nuances of the laws, the policies.

248
00:34:04,000 --> 00:34:20,000
I mean, even out here in Colorado, where, you know, I think like sometimes people will see something on the ballots and will say, let's tax the cannabis companies more, you know,

249
00:34:20,000 --> 00:34:28,000
and give it to, and make the funds go to something that is...

250
00:34:28,000 --> 00:34:36,000
Education and marijuana. That's what happened here. It wasn't a labor, like, we're going to throw some money into the public school system.

251
00:34:36,000 --> 00:34:47,000
But then what I heard, a lot of the money actually went into training police officers on cannabis or education, cannabis education instead of public schools.

252
00:34:47,000 --> 00:34:52,000
And it just kind of got shifted to another place.

253
00:34:52,000 --> 00:35:04,000
If you do have the alcohol and regulated like tobacco, those, even our food is not highly regulated like the cannabis is. Cannabis is over, over regulated.

254
00:35:04,000 --> 00:35:13,000
You have to take some of this regulation out, I believe, to make sure in other states you don't overregulate it, overtax it,

255
00:35:13,000 --> 00:35:23,000
because you're just going to shift more money back into the black market, which is even going to be harder to deal with once it's legal because it's there.

256
00:35:23,000 --> 00:35:33,000
Yeah, I mean, that's another great point, too. And that's happening in a lot of states right now because, you know, like...

257
00:35:33,000 --> 00:35:36,000
California, I guess, is probably the biggest example right now.

258
00:35:36,000 --> 00:35:43,000
Yeah. And for those folks, like, does it really make sense for, like, they already have, like, their customer base and distribution network.

259
00:35:43,000 --> 00:35:58,000
There's, you know, does it really make sense for them to try to go through the process of doing this in a way that, like, I don't know, like, I think getting rid of taxes, I think getting rid of that section.

260
00:35:58,000 --> 00:36:07,000
Yeah, definitely like lowering them or finding ways to offset it needs to happen because not only is it difficult for companies to be profitable,

261
00:36:07,000 --> 00:36:21,000
but I think it's also going to make it that much harder to incentivize. You know, it's just such a capital intensive business, you know,

262
00:36:21,000 --> 00:36:30,000
if you want to be on the plant touching side that, I mean, there has to be more incentive and pathways for people to get in.

263
00:36:30,000 --> 00:36:39,000
I totally agree with that. So, I highly appreciate you coming on the show today, Ernest. I know you got a little appointment here, so we've got to get out of here.

264
00:36:39,000 --> 00:36:46,000
But it was a pleasure talking to you today. Definitely want to keep in touch and help out as much as I can.

265
00:36:46,000 --> 00:36:55,000
Virginia, if you are wanting to get into the business, make sure you get in touch with Ernest here. He can help you out. You need some advice.

266
00:36:55,000 --> 00:37:03,000
I think Maryland's becoming legal to here to go to states very soon. So, you guys, these are some things to look out for.

267
00:37:03,000 --> 00:37:17,000
And if you're getting into the business, good luck and tune in next week. We'll have another episode. And thanks for tuning in. Peace.

268
00:37:33,000 --> 00:37:41,000
I'm not a drug dealer. We call him Dr. Earth. Meditation and good vibration.

269
00:37:41,000 --> 00:38:04,000
I have a food view, viral, and a little bit of fun. See, the joint ain't necessarily the point, but I want money. For the doctor.