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Wanda James is the Sole Black Woman Entrepreneur in Colorado’s Legalized Marijuana Boom.

Wanda James Legalized Marijuana

In 2014, medical and recreational marijuana brought in $63 million in tax revenue for the state of Colorado. According to the Washington Post, the booming cannabis market is estimated to hit $1 billion in 2016, with a projected tax revenue of $94 million. African-Americans, who have historically been the most affected by formerly aggressive anti-drug policies, aren’t seeing much benefit from an industry that is mostly white.

“Here are white men poised to run big marijuana businesses, dreaming of cashing in big — big money, big businesses selling weed — after 40 years of impoverished black kids getting prison time for selling weed, and their families and futures destroyed,” says Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. “Now, white men are planning to get rich doing precisely the same thing?”

Chef and restaurateur Wanda James stands out as the sole black woman who is a major player in the legalized marijuana game. James and her husband Scott Durrah, have owned and operated 5 restaurants over the past 20 years. The couple became a notable presence in the legal cannabis industry in Colorado after opening a medical marijuana dispensary and an edibles company.

James, who also worked as a political campaign manger and served on President Obama’s 2008 National Finance Committee, has been pretty vocal about the social and racial inequities in the legal marijuana industry.

“From about 1999 until the time we moved from California to Colorado in 2004, we were pretty politically active in getting jail sentences dropped for cannabis [possession],” says James.

For James, the fight for equality is personal. Her brother Rick, spent years in jail for possession of marijuana. In the short documentary below, we meet Rick, and learn more about Wanda’s business and her fight against the targeting of African-Americans for drug offenses.