The Cost of Being First: Black Women Pioneering America’s Cannabis Industry

​By: Rachael Payton

“We rise together or we fall together” is the mantra that the first Nigerian woman cannabis dispensary owner in America grew up on. She named her dispensary after her late maternal grandmother’s family name, Adegoke (pronounced ah-dey-go-kay). The lineage of a grandmother born under British rule in Nigeria, who took a risk and left a husband who denied their daughters an education, then became a market merchant to pay for their schooling, eventually gave birth to yet another pioneer in the bloodline named Jume Akinnagbe.

Fortunately for Jume’s grandmother, her family would welcome her back—somewhat of a rarity at the time—immediately providing the comfort of community. Jume’s grandmother quickly got to work selling beans at the market in Ondo, Nigeria. When her first large bag of beans sold out, the spirit of entrepreneurship immediately took hold. What Jume’s grandmother made that day was pennies compared to the billions of dollars the cannabis industry is worth today, and the billions made by the prison-industrial complex during the War on Drugs that disproportionately locked up Africa’s distant relatives in America. Still, the power of economic ownership unlocked a new tradition that would continue to carry on across generations.

​That is the legacy spirit that ignites Jume and the slim number of Black women who are some of the first explorers to brave the conditions of legal cannabis entrepreneurship.

For Jume, her commitment to this path did not come without careful consideration, and even discomfort after witnessing the impact of Black people being overly criminalized for nonviolent drug charges within her own family.

Like many daughters of immigrant families who moved to America when they were young girls, Jume had three career path options: doctor, lawyer or engineer. After getting her degree in neurobiology and physiology from the University of Maryland, College Park, Jume wasn’t too far behind her father, a doctor, and mother, a nurse.

​After opening her own medical practice working with veterans, many of Jume’s patients began complaining about the side effects of prescribed medicine they were receiving for things like PTSD and chronic insomnia, and talked to her about self-medicating with cannabis. Jume’s research into the health effects of the plant started to reveal another truth: the economic disparity among minorities, particularly Black women, trying to enter the industry.

​By 2024, the cannabis industry had become nearly a $40 billion market, with the Library of Medicine predicting year-over-year growth at least through 2028. We find ourselves at an interesting crossroads here, with Black Americans making up 13 percent of the total population but 62 percent of the state prison population for nonviolent drug offenses, and simultaneously holding less than 2 percent of cannabis business ownership. Black women hold only a mere fraction of that 2 percent.

​Linda Mercado Greene joins Jume in that tiny percentile. The founder and owner of Anacostia Organics Cannabis Dispensary in Southeast Washington, D.C., Linda is a pioneer in her own right. Originally born in Newport News, Virginia, Linda fell in love with the nation’s capital during school field trips in her adolescent years. After switching her major from theology to business administration at Virginia Union University, she set her sights on Chocolate City. There, she would climb through the ranks of policy, advocacy and public relations. She proudly served as chief of staff to Mayor Marion Barry Jr., whose investments in job opportunities for youth still carry on today. In fact, it was Barry who encouraged Linda to purchase a home East of the River in one of the neighborhoods most impacted by the War on Drugs and the government-facilitated crack cocaine infestation.

Linda broadcasting her podcast, Cannabis Conversations Podcast with Linda Mercado Greene, at DC Radio.

Linda speaking on panel discussing at MJBiz Conference in Las Vegas.

​Linda’s career progression and timely decision to invest in a home in a community left to fend for itself would eventually become part of Anacostia’s history. Everyone knew Ms. Linda, whether they were involved in the streets or were international leaders like Nelson Mandela visiting the mayor’s office. No matter how big or small someone was, each Thanksgiving Linda would open her home to her neighbors for a home-cooked meal. And when school was out for the holidays, Linda would offer neighborhood kids money for good grades on their report cards.

​After decades of successfully building and growing her consulting firm, The Linda Greene Group, Linda surprisingly learned that medical marijuana had become legal in D.C. while hosting neighbors for dinner. She immediately became curious and enticed by the opportunity it could create not only for her family’s generational wealth, but for the generational wealth of an entire community. She didn’t just wake up and decide to open a dispensary; Linda talked to her community about it and asked what they thought.

Mayor Muriel Bowser “Safe Cannabis” press conference at Anacostia Organics.

​To this day, Linda’s dispensary, which she now owns and operates with her daughter, Tamia Harper, is still the only one located in Anacostia. “They won’t come here,” she says. One would think this would be an advantage for Anacostia Organics, until you learn the hidden cost. In D.C., patients subsidized by programs like SNAP or Medicaid get 20 percent off cannabis products. “Most dispensaries don’t tell their patients that,” Linda says, “but we make sure that everyone who is eligible for a discount can receive one.”

The AO Logo designed by DC artist Tendani Mpulubusi El.

Linda and Tamia.

In a part of the city with a high population of subsidized patients, Linda has accumulated about $600,000 in losses over the first five years those subsidies were enacted—losses not reimbursed by the government. The one time Linda fought to get money back, officials gave it to her as a grant and would not allow her to spend it on product, which is the dispensary’s biggest need and largest cost. So, naturally, other businesses don’t yet see the value in the cultural and historic hub that Anacostia really is, leaving Anacostia Organics and other Black businesses up and down Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue to build and uphold Anacostia’s economy amongst themselves.

Linda on Capitol Hill with best friend, the late Mary Wilson of the Supremes, and Congresswoman Maxine Waters.

​Both Linda and Jume, like other Black women in this industry, often take on the responsibility of carrying a community of people behind and beside them. “It’s not enough to just get into it to make money, you have to get into it to make it equitable,” Jume says. Even at times when Black women are left to fight for themselves, time and time again they instinctually find the breath to fight for others.

​Both women have experienced similar challenges entering and staying in the industry. “Most Black families don’t have $500,000 sitting around to invest in anything, let alone in cannabis,” Linda says. If you ask them what they wish they knew before getting into the business, they’ll tell you that applying for a dispensary permit requires a nonrefundable application fee in the tens of thousands as a baseline budget item. For Linda’s application, not only did she have to pay the deposit, but she also had to secure a signed lease, pay for aerial images of the building, and fully hire security and staff before she even knew if her 800-page application would be accepted. If rejected, she faced prolonged uncertainty about when the next application cycle would open—sometimes years.

​In Maryland, Jume is also familiar with these disparities. While facing an uphill battle to demystify the health benefits of cannabis within her own community and losing some friends along the way, Jume also noticed the tangible imprint of this greenlining. She was instrumental in not only getting House Bill 2 passed in Maryland, but also pushing the state to implement it properly.

​“We did an audit and found that out of all the cannabis permit applications, there was a glaring deficit between the number of women, people of color and veterans that were getting approved, compared to the white-owned shops partnered up with big investors and legacy industries,” she says. Once the data was revealed, House Bill 2 made equity a requirement in the approval process. But even after the bill passed, the battle was not over.

​Two subsequent investigations unveiled conflicts of interest among board members who approved the permits and held dual employment with hidden major investors backing the predominantly white-owned businesses. Jume led another fight to make the state of Maryland ethically adhere to House Bill 2, all the while becoming blacklisted in the state and locked out of opportunities, ultimately pushing her to purchase a dispensary in downtown Washington instead.

​Similarly, Linda’s investment in the industry didn’t stop when her dispensary doors opened. While growing her cannabis business, she chaired the D.C. Cannabis Trade Association and the D.C. Medical Cannabis Association, and played an integral role in many national cannabis organizations.

​“Black women have a higher rate of hypertension, which is directly related to stress, and stress can be directly tied to money,” Jume points out. For our communities, public health is directly linked to economic health. Black women like Linda and Jume are doing the work to educate communities and create access to the medicinal and financial benefits of the cannabis plant, all the while risking their financial and mental health to pursue it.

​Black communities all across America are still managing the aftermath of the War on Drugs and the proliferation of mass incarceration for nonviolent drug offenses. Black women in particular have been left for generations to pick up the pieces while Black fathers, elders, brothers and other loved ones were plucked right off the street. And now that cannabis is becoming more widely utilized and better regulatory policy is increasingly considered, Black communities, families and women are owed their fair share of reparative social and economic justice to make up for just a fraction of the harm done.

​From a seed of opportunity planted by ancestors to the living embodiment of hope carried on shoulders today, Black women pioneers in the cannabis industry deserve to be uplifted, supported and cared for as they fight to care for the rest of the world.