The relationship between communities of color and the cannabis industry has historically been strained. But as more states move to legalize cannabis, the industry is increasingly facing its painful past.
Lanett Austin, director of Talent Management and Diversity at Curaleaf – the largest cannabis operator in the U.S. – joins host Porter Braswell to discuss the racial disparities in the cannabis industry and what a more equitable and inclusive future would mean.
HBR Presents is a network of podcasts curated by HBR editors, bringing you the best business ideas from the leading minds in management. The views and opinions expressed are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Harvard Business Review or its affiliates.
LANETT AUSTIN: I strongly believe that in order to be truly successful in this industry, it has to be inclusive. And you must recognize and support the communities that again, generationally have been impacted negatively by this war on drugs, by us being targeted by the color of our skin.
PORTER BRASWELL: From HBR Presents, this is Race at Work. The show that explores how race impacts our careers and lives. I’m Porter Braswell. I left a Wall Street career to start a company called Jopwell, because I wanted to help corporate America build a more diverse workforce. Each week, we talk to a different leader about their experience with race and how it impacts our daily lives.
In this episode, we’re going to talk about the cannabis industry and its complex and somewhat painful relationship with communities of color. Like how Black and white people use cannabis at equal rates, but Black people are about four times more likely to be arrested for possession. Also just 1% of dispensaries are actually Black owned.
With that in mind, we turn to Lanett Austin. She’s the director of talent management and diversity at Curaleaf. The largest cannabis operator in the U.S. The work she’s doing there is aimed at driving a more inclusive internal culture, while also ensuring communities of color are going to be positively impacted by new legislation. Lanett can relate to these topics as it hits close to home.
Do you have any personal experiences or stories of family members or friends or people within your community that were unfairly targeted for marijuana usage and how that affected either your family or families within the community?
LANETT AUSTIN: Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. It’s, it’s unfortunate, but it’s a huge reality that not only myself and others face, I have first-line cousins that are currently not only just incarcerated due to a cannabis or marijuana charge, but also where racial profiling also took a play, a huge part into that. And it’s impacted my family individually has impacted their next line of generation where we now have a young man that’s growing up without a father.
And what exactly does that mean for that generation and for the next generation, and to be able to have to explain that. To have to carry that. And more so, you know, there’s so much ignorance and lack of education around stigma and racial profiling and what people really think cannabis is versus what it really is, is what has played that negative impact.
And to the point where I have felt ashamed to talk about my own story and people that I know and loved ones that I am related to being impacted incarcerated, because I’m going to be judged because people judge you for being associated. So absolutely. I have seen that and am currently experiencing that with my own family.
PORTER BRASWELL: I appreciate you being willing to share that story. That’s when it hits home like that, there’s a level I would imagine of urgency to do the work that you’re currently doing. And so I appreciate you sharing that with us. Curious as to, despite the cannabis usage rates between whites and non-whites being similar, Black Americans are arrested for cannabis offenses at a rate of nearly four to one.
Why is that?
LANETT AUSTIN: It’s because of exactly that. That people are targeting Black people. And the war on drugs hasn’t changed, I will tell you, because people haven’t changed. And when we start to change our mindset and start looking – one is what cannabis really is and bringing education and statistics and facts and understanding that it’s not necessarily that gateway drug that we all were taught to be.
Um, but then also starting to realize exactly, as you just said, that, that statistic that black and white people use it in equal ratios. Then you have to look at it and go, this definitely, isn’t just a cannabis issue. This is really a racial issue where people are targeting and associating being Black as being bad. As using something that they considered negative.
And so when we go back historically, and we look at TV shows news articles, documentaries, you see that you see the propaganda of all of the different movies that we can list out that show, if you start using marijuana, then your white daughter is going to fall in love with this Black man. Oh no, this is very bad.
Or that this is what it’s going to make you start acting like. And it’s very negative images and it’s always Black people that are used as the negative representation. And so it has constantly been fed into the minds of the people who are behind again policing. It’s behind our legislation. It’s behind each and everything we do because we are a society built of people.
And so people have these perceptions and it rolls over into their actions. And that is why we have that disproportionate rate.
PORTER BRASWELL: Hmm. So on the back of that, I have a question that maybe I should know, maybe not. Why is it called the cannabis industry versus being called the marijuana or pot industry?
LANETT AUSTIN: I love this one.
Um, and so I can tell you my stance on this. I use cannabis, cannabis, cannabis, cannabis. And that’s because we have seen historically going back that one, that is the name of the plant. It is a cannabis plant. Uh, and second the word marijuana all derived from that negative connotation where the government wanted to make cannabis be skewed very negatively.
And that, that is when the word marijuana was introduced when they were tying it back to, right, the Spanish roots. And that’s when from early 1920s, when it was legal in the us, and it was named as cannabis and used for medicinal purposes, now became outlawed and called marijuana. And now that’s that negative stigmatization that we’ve been fighting ever since.
So in this industry to even start with righting the wrongs, right? We talking about education. I purposely use “cannabis” each and every time, because it can be seen as a racial slur by using marijuana, as well as, as always an opportunity to educate people, to understand the difference between cannabis and knowing that that’s the name of the plant, as well as where the word marijuana derived from.
PORTER BRASWELL: Interesting. I appreciate you sharing that with me. I feel like I should know that.
LANETT AUSTIN: You’re not the only one, please know. So my home state of New York, currently the legal cannabis program to be used, and many States are like this, are called the medical marijuana program. That’s what MMP stands for. And you’ll see medical marijuana program, a lot of different places.
So it was so fascinating to see when so much conversation was happening. Social equity has been a huge, huge part and in New York legislation and when they did listening sessions were like talking to the governor and we’re just like, hello. Well, we can first start by let’s updating the name of the program to be the medical cannabis program and not medical marijuana.
But, here we are today. That right there is just one part of how miseducation just takes a world of its own. And though people have good intent, not realizing certain words have been derived out of racism is a start to starting to educate.
PORTER BRASWELL: Are there other educational tips that we should know about that this industry…
Again, in the example of it being called the cannabis industry. That just created a light for me that I is now turned on. So I’m sure I’m ignorant towards a lot of other things. Are there other things that we should all be aware of?
LANETT AUSTIN: Oh my gosh. I mean, we could definitely go down the list, right? So we talk about stereotyping and who, your typical quote unquote patient customer is of cannabis.
That right there, if we were to survey a hundred Americans and say, what does your average cannabis patient look like? I guarantee you, they will not say: between the age of 60 and 70, suffering with chronic pain, or a very chronic illness such as cancer or HIV, they will not say that. But that is currently that average patient in many of the States that we serve.
So that right there is huge. And also, not to mention that their race is not Black, it’s white. And typically, a female. That is that average, uh, patient profile. That’s one out there that’s huge. Also another is route of consumption. People think of cannabis and they only think of the flower, the bud, they think about rolling it up and has this smell and “oh, nobody wants to have the smell and the joint.”
That’s one type of route of administration. And that can be a preferred route, but it’s also in the form of capsules. It’s in the form of tinctures, very different, many different ways that can be consumed. In a very private or discreet type of way. That’s very important. So there are so many different consumers out there, and that’s also so great because there’s so many different routes of administration that people are able to use.
And that again, is something people do not normally think of, or even know when they think about the cannabis industry.
PORTER BRASWELL: So would you say then that miseducation is the biggest issue that the industry faces? Because I know you said it stems from policy, language and politics, but where does it come from?
LANETT AUSTIN: Hmm, yes, I do agree with that. I think it does stem from education and accountability. And so education, starting with understanding the basics, right? Understanding the history, understanding that cannabis was legal in America before. Understanding that cannabis was used for medicinal purposes is important.
I think it’s also about education to our legislators, right. To law enforcement. It’s so impactful that Curaleaf has dedicated departments and resources for all of that education.
We have a team that’s dedicated to just general outreach to understand and break down education to the public of knowing there’s a cannabis company that’s coming in. This is what they stand for. No, they’re not trying to sell drugs to your kids. No, your whole block, isn’t gonna smell. And really be able to just deal with those basic kinda one-on-one questions. But then you have the education that’s focused on our practitioners, on the doctors on the medical field, because this is again, an area that many medical professionals are very unfamiliar with.
It has not been a part of their traditional education so that we have to tackle: that how actually this cannabis product can help in many medicinal ways. And then third, you have education that is about legislators, where we have to go to our lawmakers and educate them on who exactly the patient is, how exactly this product is grown and made, teaching them about the historical injustice that previous laws they have already made are and have impacted these communities.
And even more-so, the current laws that you are making are blocking out the same people that you have targeted for hundreds of years. But then it goes into the accountability because once you know something, you now have a responsibility to do something as a community member. You now understand that these are our patients.
You understand that historical injustice that’s been done. What can you do? You can go and share that information. You can now be a part, be an advocate. If you feel so convicted about righting these wrongs. And then we take it there a step further to say, all right practitioners, now you are educated and you are now understanding that cannabis is not that gateway drug.
It actually can reverse and wean people off opioid addictions and other things as well as you can now prescribe it to these patients for these reasons, that’s your accountability to do so. And then third going into legislation. Now you understand that the laws you have written have blocked people out.
Now you have a responsibility to edit and change those laws that they are now inclusive, and they will now benefit and impact in a positive way those same communities.
PORTER BRASWELL: So, is there a specific moment when those reeducation efforts led to an “ah ha” moment when the light turned on for someone in the community or with families or lawmakers who you’re working with, who you were trying to inform?
LANETT AUSTIN: Yes. Uh, so right. The whole world knows most recently, New York pass legal legislation, right. Adult use. And I have to say I’m so proud of that because I’m technically, or in a sense, I am a part of that. And so many of our government relation efforts to really educate our lawmakers, consisted of hosting tours. And tours to come see the facility of both the dispensary and to see our grow and manufacturing facilities so they can really understand the laws that they are writing and what really the industry is and seeing patients.
And that was not an easy task. Because again, the people who read our laws, not all of them look like you and I. And so just being able to one, invite them and say, do you understand that cannabis is and sold in the, in the blunt form or flower form that you may know?
And, and to give them a placebo of, uh, of a bottle and they were like, I don’t even want to touch it. I’m like, it’s a placebo, calm down. So we had to like break down that wall to say, you know what, let me give you a tour. The guard was up. They were absolutely not wanting to do this, but they were like, okay, I guess I have to, I’m a little bit curious.
And to see them walk through the facility, to see them, see the patients who are actually being served. Not at all, I can just tell, what they expected. The wall comes down. Um, they’re walking through the facility, they’re seeing how diverse the teams are, how professional our team members are, how clean the environment is, where there wasn’t one legislature that went through our tour and said to me: Not only is this the best cannabis facility I’ve seen because really it was the only one they had seen in most cases, but they were like, this is the best manufacturing facility I have seen period. The cleanliness, the professionalism, that upscale, is what…
I’m like this is exactly what we’re talking about. We are a legit professional industry and that’s what it’s about. And so that right there is absolutely one of the best examples I have top of mind where they came in with the wall up, didn’t want to touch anything. And then by the time they left two and a half hours later, they were like, okay, what do I need to do?
How do I become a patient? And I want to be a part of this. I was like, what? So, I mean, it, it, it really would have got to a point where it was really a great aha moment that people will come in with their nose up and face frowned, and leaving there so excited to go back and be able to rewrite some of these very impactful, negative, impactful laws.
PORTER BRASWELL: Thank you for sharing that. Okay. You’re passionate about this.
LANETT AUSTIN: I’m passionate.
PORTER BRASWELL: I need to know the why behind your passion. Where does that come from?
LANETT AUSTIN: I have to tell you. So. Coming into this industry … obviously I am a Black woman and I’ve always been Black, but I grew up in a very predominantly white and a very predominantly European white community.
And that was just historically because of my family’s industry, they’re opera singers. I grew up in Germany. And so I didn’t move to America until I was almost 13. Um, and when we moved to America, again, because of my parents’ profession, we moved into a very predominantly white neighborhood. I had been in all predominantly white and Europeans spaces, both at school, both activities, sports, church.
I was usually one of a few, if not the only person of color when we were doing things outside of my, of my family.
PORTER BRASWELL: Question on that though. Question on that though. How did you feel in that moment when you recognized all the time you were the only?
LANETT AUSTIN: Um, gosh, so it’s, it’s so funny. I actually – and it really wasn’t until high school where people started to notice and point things out where I couldn’t be a certain character in a show and I couldn’t figure out why. I made huge history of being one of the first Black pageant winners of my high school. And I was like, what? Like what do you mean? We’ve been this high school has been in existence for 70 years.
That’s when things started “aha” moments, and light bulbs going off. And because of my grandparents and my great-grandparents, they, my HBCU legacy is real.
I am not a first college graduate. My great-grandfather went to Morehouse and my grandmother went to Spelman and that is the legacy that I come from. I was like, I have to. Go to an HBCU. One is like, I got my legacy behind me, but then two was, I need to know a little bit more about myself and so going to an HBCU, shout out to my amazing unsinkable Albany State University. And I’m so proud.
And that’s when part of your core curriculum was African diaspora, right? Understanding history. And I’m like, well, we didn’t have that course in high school. Okay. Understanding that before there was the Selma March that they actually had the March in Albany, Georgia. That’s where my passion and interest first came there.
And then when I moved to New York and really became interested and had the opportunity to come into the cannabis industry, I really thought, oh my God, this is going to be the easiest job ever. Like we’re going to sell cannabis. And it wasn’t until my job was literally, not only just to hire and I was team member number three, to hire an entire operations as the first ever for New York Curaleaf operations. But my second role was also to do outreach, to do the education, and that was to legislators, to this, to that, to future patients. And so going through the process and learning that it was very strict.
It was very hard. You had to have a severe medical condition in order to have a license, which there’s only a certain limited amount. You have to have millions of dollars in the bank. I said, Oh, this is totally not accessible to anyone that I know who currently uses cannabis in college who’s like, I want to grow.
And that’s when the door was wide open. And I said, I have a responsibility. I have also an opportunity. And now we’re going to, we’re going to infuse the two together.
PORTER BRASWELL: So if you close your eyes and we went forward 10 years from today, what does that look like to you? How are communities of color different than they are now as it pertained to engaging working within selling, being a part of the cannabis industry?
LANETT AUSTIN: Oh gosh. So 10 years from now, and I’m going to play this back in 10 years to see if my prediction was there. Um, and that is legislation is obviously confirmed and people are living their life proudly. And that is in this cannabis industry being truly inclusive.
And you have a variety of small businesses, large businesses, you have consumers, you have practitioners because you had every aspect you can think, built of a variety of backgrounds, of race, of gender, of age. That is where I see, because that’s what consumers want, right? People want to be able to go to what’s convenient for them.
Some people want high luxury. Some people want only a minority owned. Some people want whatever that is. And that is where it needs to be, where it cannot just be one type of industry for anything, because that is the exact opposite of diversity. And so I feel that within 10 years, if things are done right, and the way that Curaleaf is really pushing, with the responsibilities they have through legislation, through our commitment and accountability, with our partnerships, our strategic partnerships happening across the board with smaller organizations, with minority organizations, with us educating our team members, making sure people are developing their mindset as well as their skillset, then absolutely we should have a much more inclusive and diverse community in this cannabis industry.
PORTER BRASWELL: So as you think about moving forward, specifically from a hiring perspective, what are some of the efforts that Curaleaf is going to do to drive more representation within the organization?
LANETT AUSTIN: Absolutely. So with that, um, it even goes right into our hiring program, right within our talent acquisition, where individuals with low level cannabis related offenses should not be shut out. That’s what our stance is. And as a commitment to righting the wrongs of prohibition, we are employing at least 10% of all our Curaleaf 2021 new hires from the directly impacted communities. So we’re very committed to that. And that is a partnership that we had to work with our government relations team to ensure that legislation is reflective of our efforts, so that we can even make that possible. It’s also working with different, smaller minority owned, other recruiting agencies and things like that to assist within that vetting process. So we get to bring in more employment with this initiative.
Again, it’s all about that commitment to writing the wrongs for the same people that have been affected to now have opportunity in this cannabis space.
PORTER BRASWELL: Is that an effort that’s happening across the cannabis industry or is that specifically just within Curaleaf? Yeah,
LANETT AUSTIN: Unfortunately, it right now is something that is only specific with Curaleaf.
We are the leading industry cannabis leader, and we take that with a lot of responsibility. Also within righting the wrongs and really making sure that we do our responsibility. In my experience what I’ve seen that that’s currently the case is because, again, lack of education, we are now at a place where we’re having to right the wrongs. And as those laws have already been written to block out the community members of color, It’s going to be the same way that we now have to break down that wall rewrite the laws.
And in many times that means you might need to change who those people are writing those laws. And so community members have a huge responsibility in this. It’s about who you are voting for. It’s about who was going to be writing these laws as well as, I don’t think other big cannabis companies necessarily have really understood the space that they are in.
And that is a concern. And that is where you have a responsibility, in the same way that you look into a certain industry and research it before you come in and you know, all of that. Why are you not doing the same for cannabis? Or are you, and you are still choosing to think that you are going to succeed without this community?
Well, I believe you are sadly mistaken. And I hope that you catch on sooner than later. But understand, I strongly believe that in order to be truly successful in this industry, it has to be inclusive. And you must recognize and support the communities that again, generationally have been impacted negatively by this war on drugs. By us being targeted by the color of our skin.
PORTER BRASWELL: I’m going to be honest. I was always skeptical about large cannabis companies’ desire to welcome communities of color into the dialogue. That was until I met you. And hearing somebody with the amount of passion and authenticity that you have, and knowing that you’re working at a large organization, that’s focused on it, I feel better. I feel so much better as a consumer, that the progress that we want to see occur will actually occur. So I appreciate you sharing all of your lessons and your “why” for doing this work, it makes me feel better. I truly appreciate that.
LANETT AUSTIN: I really appreciate that back to you.
I had to tell you. You know, this work is hard and a lot of times we are outnumbered throughout this industry, but we need more. We need more of us. And sometimes it is looked at and I have been called a sellout, right? I have been called a sellout because I work for a big cannabis company. That’s real.
That affects me in many ways, because it also targeted and triggers back to my upbringing as I shared with you before. And I’m like, no, no, no. And the problem with that, because it’s such an ignorant mindset of looking that Black and Brown and minority people are coming into the cannabis industry or big cannabis companies that are predominantly white,
we can’t be looked at as sellouts. It actually is the opposite. In order for us to really change this industry, you need people from outside pushing in, but you need people from the inside pushing out as well. And so this work is heavy, and know exactly what you said – I take so much pride in hearing that because that is not the stance that other big organizations are doing.
And we are fighting against that stigma as well. And trying to lift as much as we can and if possible, but the allyship that was in this community is like none other I have seen. I’m telling you as a woman of color to have non-minorities embrace me to uplift, to reach out, to check on me when things are going on. To want to have certain events to be educated, to inquire on what exactly you know, is white privilege. I’m ashamed to say that I don’t really know, but I want to learn more. I want to teach this. I want to teach diversity to my children. That is what it takes. It’s not just a Black and Brown people coming into this industry, but it’s the allies.
It’s the non-minorities being educated and being supported and, and the supporting our Black and Brown community members for us to really make effective change. And so that also is what empowers me to do what I do every day.
PORTER BRASWELL: So Lanett, one question that we’re going to ask all of our guests this season.
Which is different from season one, season one was, should we talk about race at work? The answer was, yes. This season. The question I want to know from all of our guests is how do we talk about race at work?
LANETT AUSTIN: I love that question and yes, yes, yes, absolutely. We had to talk about a race at work and I think the way we do it is we embrace it.
We celebrate it. We learn about it, right? It’s – going back again to education. Race is something we all have in common. It’s just all different races. And so it’s about having a company that already has a foundation of a culture that stands for, we celebrate your race and your differences here at this employer.
And that’s what we stand for at Curaleaf. So going back in and looking at one is foundation, our culture. One of our core values, we have five. Um, but the one that really reflects our culture of how we embrace and celebrate work at, uh, race at work is respect for all. We at Curaleaf are talking about race at work, right?
So we talk about with our core values, but also within our resources. We built out a full DEI task force. We have employee resource groups that are diverse in and of itself, sub committees. We have our action plan around commitment. But these are all resources that are in place to be able to uplift and have a safe place for us to again, discuss our race, to be able to celebrate it. Different programs and things that we’ve done most recently were a heritage luncheon.
And this is a great creative, fun way to talk about race at work, where everyone was invited to make a dish that celebrates your heritage. So I, as a Southern Black American who, you know, have ties to Georgia, I had to make my collard greens. You know what I mean? Uh, but then you have other people that maybe made a, uh, home dish from Ireland. Or we had people again from certain parts of Africa and to see the different African dishes that are there.
We had people from Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic and from Asia, I mean, the list went on. And so that right there was a fun and creative way of talking about race. You obviously can get very classroom style where we also host eat every month open to all of our team members where we don’t just talk about discrimination.
We host a monthly live discrimination training. We actually have titled it after our core values so it’s called respect for all. But that’s a live monthly training that any of our team members that want to get on and have a little bit more information about the protected classes that how we talk about race at work what’s appropriate, what’s not?
Next week we’re hosting our AAPI event where we are talking about again, race again, and how it’s impacted in our cannabis industry, but how we can celebrate it, how we can be an ally. Again, it’s that education. Holding space. Things like that is how we at Curaleaf talk about race that’s in a way that is not just educational, but it’s also about celebrating the diversity that we all have.
PORTER BRASWELL: Awesome. Well, I think that the business case for having a more diverse workforce, there’s no more compelling case than breaking into the cannabis industry. And for these corporations to welcome diverse individuals within the organization. There’s no more obvious opportunity in my mind that if they want to authentically connect and engage with these communities of color, that historically have been incarcerated and left behind as a result of the war on drugs, this is a unique chance and opportunity to get it right, and to be the leading brand.
And so I appreciate that Curaleaf is. Doing all that it’s doing and you’re doing all that you’re doing and being outspoken on these topics. I’ve learned a lot and I feel more educated and more equipped to have this dialogue now. So, so I appreciate it.
LANETT AUSTIN: Thank you, Porter.
PORTER BRASWELL: That’s Lanett Austin, director of talent management and diversity at Curaleaf. This episode was produced by Liz Sanchez. Special thanks to Anne Sani and Nick Hendra.
Next week we will be joined by the 2019 WNBA Rookie of the Year, Napheesa Collier. We’ll talk about how she performs at such a high level while also balancing the responsibility to use her platform, to raise awareness on social justice issues.
NAPHEESA COLLIER: So really we were just expressing our feelings and how it made us felt. It was really emotional, you know, a lot of tears from a lot of people. And again, seeing it happen in Minnesota, our first thought was like, what can we do about this?