National Cannabis Company will grant over $1 Million to Nonprofits fighting War on Drugs

Green Thumb Industries Inc., the owner of RISE Dispensaries, established a grant program to help organizations seeking to amend the horrific effects of the war on drugs.

According to a company press release, fall 2021 was the initial launch of the Good Green Grant Program. The company aims to donate more than $1 million by the end of the year. It has granted over $500,000 to eight organizations whose focal points are education, employment, and expungement of individuals convicted of selling cannabis.

“We want to reduce the harms caused by the war on drugs,” Jai Kensey, director of social impact for Green Thumb Industries, said to a news outlet.

“By working with nonprofit organizations, like the Philadelphia Lawyers for Social Equity and Why Not Prosper, that help to expunge records and to provide employment services for organizations, we can create what it looks like to give back and to create a diverse cannabis space.”

She added: “to ignore the horrible history that has come, that is associated with this plant and with this industry would do our communities a disservice. What i hope to see is that we continue from the ground up on a local level to federal level, the removal of the stigma that is attached to not only cannabis but also to individuals with criminal records associated with cannabis.”

Profits from product sales allow Good Green to fund grants for nonprofits that actively work with communities of color disproportionately affected by the war on drugs.

“Through this brand, we work to reinvest those cannabis funds back into the community and support nonprofits that are really in the trenches doing the work to support communities negatively impacted by the war on drugs. I always talk about how the cannabis industry was built on the backs of Black and brown people, before legalization in a lot of states. So, it’s cannabis companies like ourselves that are multi-state operators that have to give back to those communities and to support as much as possible to help those wrongs,” Kensey said.

Apply to the Good Green Grant Program before Aug. 19 at 11:59 p.m. EST.