Marijuana Business Magazine February 2020

February 2020 | mjbizdaily.com 83 B efore becoming the first black woman in Colorado to own a licensed dispensary, Wanda James was an officer in the U.S. Navy, owned three restaurants and served on President Barack Obama’s 2008 National Finance Committee. A decade into her career in the legal marijuana market—with entrepreneurial ventures including a dispensary, edibles com- pany and consulting firm—James is on a mission to ensure that minorities have an equal opportunity to participate in the marijuana industry. Leading up to the MJBizDaily Awards, Marijuana Business Magazine sat down with James to learn about her trailblazing work in the cannabis industry. How big of a risk was starting your business? The risk in starting a cannabis business back in 2009 meant that you were taking your freedom into your own hands. In 2009, for a black person to stand up and say, “I’m going to sell legal weed in my state,” meant that you had to have three senators, four congressmen and a bevy of lawyers on speed dial. What did you see about the industry early on that other people didn’t see? What I knew about the cannabis space early on was that legalization was coming faster than anybody else knew. The reason why I’ve known that is because since I was 16 years old, I had been getting elevated. And the people that I have been getting elevated with over the past 30-plus years are doctors, lawyers, elected officials and very, very wealthy people. Because so many people were using cannabis illegally, I knew that, once we gave them the opportunity to go legal, and once we were able to show politicians the taxation and jobs it created, this industry was going to flip—and I knew that it was going to flip quickly. What have been some of your biggest challenges? Like everybody else, money, money, money, money. As a black entrepreneur, it’s always difficult to find money, even in the best of circumstances. As a black entrepreneur in the cannabis space, it’s damn near impossible to get funding. I would say the hardest thing that we deal with is the fact that we operate a legal business within an illegal structure. So, clearly, no banking. Fortunately for Simply Pure, we do have a legal bank account, but it’s more of a depository. We don’t have access to lines of credit, access to credit cards. We don’t have tax breaks that any other industry that brought 40,000 jobs to Colorado would immediately get. What have you accomplished that’s made a difference in the industry? I hope that we have enlightened, that we have given women who are fighting breast cancer or cervical cancer the opportunity to try cannabis instead of getting in bed with Big Pharma, that we’ve given people the opportunity to try to heal their children with epilepsy with cannabis. And, most importantly, we have been a vehicle to stop police harassment in black communities because of simple possession. What have you done to promote social equity and social justice? We hire in the black community, we hire in the brown community, we hire vets, we hire women, and we do that because I happen to be black, I happen to be brown, I happen to be a vet, I happen to be a woman. This is what’s important to me. Simply Pure is the voice to make sure that, at least in this industry, we’re going to be heard to say black and brown ownership must happen. We put ourselves on the line a lot, and I probably burn a lot of bridges because I fight so hard for social equity, social justice and for black and brown people in the industry. (This interview has been edited for length and clarity.) – Margaret Jackson WANDA JAMES CEO, Simply Pure Denver Wanda James celebrates being the first inductee to the MJBizDaily Awards Hall of Fame.