Black Cannabis Week: Justice, Health, and Ownership
We spoke with Cherron Perry-Thomas, Co-founder of the Diasporic Alliance for Cannabis Opportunities (DACO) and Founder of Black Cannabis Week Philadelphia, about the importance of education, equity, and empowerment in the cannabis industry.
Black Cannabis Week, founded right here in Philadelphia, isn’t just about celebrating cannabis it’s about rewriting the narrative for Black and Brown communities who’ve carried the heaviest weight of the war on drugs. Perry-Thomas explained how the week long gathering brings people from across the country together for conversations around justice, health, entrepreneurship, and policy.
From her own journey — sparked by reading The New Jim Crow and seeing family and neighbors locked up for cannabis charges — Perry-Thomas is determined to make sure our communities are not shut out of a billion-dollar industry. She reminds us that while corporations profit, people are still sitting in prison cells for something that’s now legal in many states.
Events during Black Cannabis Week include the Cannabis Opportunities Conference at Temple University, where community members can learn about business opportunities, policy updates, and even sit with attorneys to work on expungements and pardons. For Perry-Thomas, this work is about connecting cannabis back to its roots as medicine, as agriculture, and as a tool for equity.
She stressed that cannabis isn’t just about consumption, it’s about rebuilding communities by using hemp to tackle issues such as housing, education, and health. In other states, tax revenue from legal cannabis, whether it’s recreational or medicinal, has already been used to fund schools, affordable housing, and community repair. That’s the vision for Philadelphia as well. Making sure revenue flows back into the very neighborhoods that were harmed.
Black Cannabis Week has become a national model, drawing people from New York, Chicago, Virginia, and D.C. to Philadelphia, also known as the “Wakanda of Cannabis.” It’s a reminder that our stories, our lived experiences, and our resilience must lead the way as this industry grows.
For more info, visit BlackCannabisWeek.com.