CAREERS
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edition
Business grounded by science
Celebrating Juneteenth
‘City
of
Roses’
Saturday’s parade in pictures
See coverage, page 7
Volume XLVII • Number 24
Making a
splash in the
beauty industry
See Metro, page 9
Established in 1970
www.portlandobserver.com
Wednesday • June 20, 2018
Committed to Cultural Diversity
photo by D anny p eterson /t he p ortlanD o bserver
Nicole Kennedy and Karanja Crews cut the ribbon for the grand opening of the world’s first hip-hop themed cannabis dispensary near Northeast 16th and Killingsworth,
drawing support from local government leaders promoting equity in the licensing of operators and for employment in Oregon’s new recreational marijuana industry. Also
pictured at Saturday’s event were (from left) Oregon Congressman Earl Blumenauer, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, City Commissioner Amanda Fritz and State Sen. Lew
Frederick.
Green and Equitable
Dispensary represents progress and end to war on pot
by D anny p eterson
t he p ortlanD o bserver
The opening of an Afri-
can-American owned and hip-hop
themed dispensary, a world first, in
northeast Portland, shows prom-
ise for bringing economic growth
to a disadvantaged community
while also giving back through its
unique training program to help
other members of the communi-
ty find economic opportunity in
the legal cannabis industry. The
store opened with the support of
high-ranking public officials Sat-
urday.
“This is more than a store, this
is a representation of equity,” said
co-owner Karanja Crews, who
grew up in the same neighborhood
as the store.
Called Green Hop, the dispen-
sary near the corner of Northeast
16th Avenue and Killingsworth
Street, sat freshly painted in bright
green and yellow trim for its grand
opening, appropriately on rapper
Tupac Shakur’s birthday. Crowds
of people eagerly awaited en-
trance and blasts of hip-hop were
audible on the sunny day.
The store with its posters and
vinyl records of the late rapper,
along with Nas, Wu-Tang Clan,
A Tribe Called Quest, and other
legends of rap, features strains of
cannabis that pay homage to hip-
hop, dispensary co-owner Nicole
Kennedy told the Portland Ob-
server.
“In the 90s, hip-hop culture re-
ally normalized cannabis use and
made it as part of a lifestyle, rather
than making it so taboo,” Kenne-
dy explained.
Crews and Kennedy, who are
both from Portland, hope to raise
awareness, and even help reverse
some of the racial disparity issues
associated with the cannabis in-
dustry, such as gentrification and
America’s history of waging war
on pot.
Their business has already won
a grant and partnered with a non-
profit education agency to train
aspiring youth of color who want
to work in the legal cannabis in-
dustry, as well as offering paid-in-
ternships for career advancement
of newcomers.
“We’re training people of color
to get them into the industry and to
help them have a way in. Because
the industry is very network based,
and it’s really white-washed. But
when you look at who has been
targeted for cannabis crimes, it’s
mainly people of color. We over
represent the prison population
when it comes to cannabis crimes
[and] are severely underrepresent-
ed in the legalized cannabis indus-
try,” Kennedy said.
The training program will also
look into record-expungement op-
tions for prior cannabis offenders.
State Sen. Lew Frederick, an
African American lawmaker from
Portland who has worked on bills
to lessen the blow of marijuana
offenses in the past, emphasized
the importance of practices like
C ontinueD on p age 15