As the cannabis industry is booming and on the precipice of federal legalization, it must figure out how it will traverse and address racial and gender equity in its workforce. While folks who have been incarcerated for non-violent cannabis offenses are overwhelmingly people of color, those getting funding and attention in the legalized cannabis industry have often been white men. STIIIZY is a brand changing that paradigm.
A Los Angeles-based cannabis company in 5 states, women of color are at the heart of STIIIZY’s continuous, pivotal success. The company breaks the "white bro in weed" mold - the vast majority of its employees are people of color, women are in leadership at all levels, and the brand has critical partnerships to support the #STOPASIANHATE movement and other community-led social justice initiatives.
Today on the podcast are STIIIZY executives Jackie Kim and Charmaine Chua. They discuss what it's like to be women of color in the industry, what they feel a diverse perspective brings to the market, how we can rectify the historic damage done to communities of color in the "war on drugs," why it's so important to them that their company is involved in social justice issues, and what they see as the future of the cannabis industry.
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STIIIZY products are available to individuals over the age of 21 in California, Nevada, Washington, Michigan, and Arizona.
Medication abortion, or "the abortion pill," is an incredibly safe method of abortion that can be used up to about the first 11 weeks of pregnancy. Many people prefer this method to an in-clinic abortion due to the lower cost and the ability to manage the pregnancy termination to a large extent at home, on their own terms - but there's plenty of stigma and confusion around it (like the fact that "the abortion pill" is actually a regimen of two different meds, taken as 5 pills total). Worse, there are medically unnecessary restrictions on the provision of medication abortion, passed by ideologues rather than by doctors. Chief among them is an FDA requirement that has historically dictated that the first pill in the two-part regimen be taken in a doctor's office - even though there is no scientific basis to this requirement. Restrictions like this do nothing to make abortion safer, but go a long way towards making abortion harder to get for many people.
Today on the podcast we welcome back previous guest Aisha Chaudhri of Everthrive Illinois to discuss all things "MedAb:" what it is, how it works, why someone might prefer this method, what the restrictions are, how COVID has led to temporary loosening on some of these restrictions, and how we can advocate for the permanent removal of these medically unnecessary restrictions on what is a very safe, routine procedure.
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