Nonprofit Expands Workforce Training Efforts to Support Cannabis Industry Equity
Cannabis Justice Employment Initiative Launches New Harlem Program to Empower Communities Impacted by the War on Drugs.
After graduating their inaugural cohort, a New York City-based nonprofit focused on social equity and workforce development in the Empire State’s cannabis industry is setting up shop in Harlem, as they prepare to begin classes for the next 16-week course.
Terrence Coffie, executive director of the Cannabis Justice Employment Initiative, said the organization wants to ensure residents of NYC neighborhoods most negatively impacted by the War on Drugs are able to join the legal market, and expunge cannabis convictions, as promised by the MRTA.
“This was birthed out of our love for the community,” Coffie said, adding that the group wants to “provide the necessary resources to ensure that they have as much access to this burgeoning market as anyone else.”
Coffie, a professor at New York University Silver School of Social Work, launched the CJEI last year with co-founders Sean Farrow, an attorney and NYU professor; Jamil Myrie, vice president of retail operations at Acreage Holdings; and Jeffrey Hoffman, a cannabis-focused attorney.
CJEI has been serving dual purposes: providing intensive training for community members looking to enter the cannabis industry, and offering legal advice and services to people who are trying to expunge a past cannabis conviction, as the MRTA allows in many cases.
Expungement services have become a pressing need among many NYC communities that experienced over-policing at the height of the War on Drugs era, because many are unaware of their legal rights and options around expungement, said Hoffman.
For example, Hoffman said, in many cases courts automatically expunge records for low-level possession convictions. But courts don’t notify people about these expungements, so some of them don’t know their conviction has been erased.
“If you don’t know that your low-level cannabis conviction has been expunged, you probably keep checking the ‘yes’ box on forms that ask, ‘Have you ever been convicted of a crime,’” Hoffman said.
For many other cases, people simply need to file a motion for expungement in the court where they were convicted. Hoffman and other attorneys have been assisting CJEI clients pro-bono on how to file such motions, and providing support for those who run into problems.
Hoffman recently scored a legal victory for a CJEI client who was trying to expunge two cannabis-related Class E felonies in Saratoga County. A judge had initially ruled that, rather than vacate the man’s convictions, he would substitute felonies for lesser charges on his criminal record, Hoffman said.
“There was an individual that clearly met the criteria and clearly meets what the legislature outlines for this law – that we’ve got to let these people get on with their lives,” Hoffman said. Ultimately, the judge “made that order, and he vacated the conviction without a substitute.”
Situations like these are why it’s pivotal that CJEI operates in and serves areas where many people lack resources to fully exercise their legal rights, said Myrie. CJEI’s expungement efforts go hand-in-glove with its workforce development programming, Myrie said, because past convictions can hurt peoples’ job prospects, whether or not they’re seeking employment in the cannabis industry.
Myrie, a decades-long entrepreneur who has worked in the cannabis space for about seven years, said CJEI’s job training approach is similar to their expungement efforts: meeting people where they are. The group continues to hold meetings in places like Harlem’s St. Nicholas housing projects, to let people know about the services they provide.
“We have to be part of that justice piece in order that these folks in these communities can access the job opportunities,” Myrie said. “Otherwise, it’s a nonstarter.”
The training program – which is free to participants – includes sections on cultivation, retail, workplace rights, career development and other important topics, Coffie said. Last year, 25 people graduated from the program, and this fall they’re expecting a class of 30.
While CJIE wants to ultimately graduate 1,500 people from the program, they only want between 25 and 30 in each cohort, so each student gets the attention they need, Coffie said.
CJEI leaders also hope to begin meeting with new leaders at the Office of Cannabis Management following the departure of former Executive Director Chris Alexander – and the suspension of Chief Equity Officer Damian Fagon – Coffie said.
The group had a positive working relationship with Alexander and Fagon, and hopes that continues under interim OCM leader Felicia Reid, and the eventual permanent executive director, Coffie said, adding that CJEI is capable of reaching communities that may otherwise fall through the cracks.
“I went to a lot of the [OCM-led] community conversations … unfortunately, those conversations were not held in the communities most harmed,” Coffie said. “That is the leverage of who we are and what we do, because of our relationship with the community.”
