The ourstory of two cultures meeting is often riddled with turbulence. There are a few instances when cultures have met and have been able to coexist. However, ourstory* has shown that when two opposing cultures meet, turmoil against cultural practices and physical cultural components ensues. This process of integration between opposing cultures is known in sociology and philosophy as hegemony. Developed by Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci - hegemony is the process by which a diverse culture’s norms and values are replaced with the dominant culture’s norms and values.
The emergence of a legal cannabis market, out of a once illicit one, places this sociological theory at the center of business marketing and branding strategical theory. Individuals that once prosecuted, judged, and looked down upon cannabis are now entering the legal cannabis market as investors and entrepreneurs. These new cannabis investors and entrepreneurs come into the market with preexisting ideals of how a business should be run, and how cannabis should be marketed to the consumer.
Although the ability to enter new enterprises is the beauty of a free market, the illicit market of cannabis comes with an ourstory that is over 4,000 years old and a culture that has flourished even under the most scrutinizing environment of prohibition. However, due to stereotypes, which were created through racist propaganda and policies, bias has been explicitly and implicitly perpetuated through our legal market. These biases disallow the rich culture and ourstory the illicit cannabis market holds from being taken seriously by new members of the legal cannabis market.
These preexisting stereotypes carry an ideology, procured by hegemony, that places the legal business market as morally and intellectually superior to the once illicit business market. Examples of these stereotypes at play within the legal market are the initial exception of individuals with criminal records from the legal Colorado market; and the lack of knowledge by new emerging entrepreneurs of ourstorical figures and their contributions to cannabis culture.
The Almighty Buda Crew seeks to combat the issues the process of hegemony brings about – those of believing in a morally and intellectually superior market and those of ignorance about culture. We seek to eradicate the predisposed notions about the illicit market by empathetic means. The Almighty BC seeks to combat the disastrous process of hegemony through community and corporate events, marketing, and branding.
The need for a firm like the Almighty Buda Crew emerged after several experiences with upper managers and owners in the legal markets of Colorado, California, and New Mexico. Often, I found (find) myself having to explain who an artist or activist was to a new cannabis investor, or a new cannabis entrepreneur. Furthermore, I found (find) myself having to defend individuals with exonerated criminal backgrounds who were presenting their legal brands to dispensaries and investors. I have had to, more often than not, calm anxieties of “legal businessmen” who wish to deal with a brand or company that has a legacy in the black market but are too nervous to do so because they are “drug dealers”.
As a user of over 20 years, who has consumed under prohibition and out of it, I personally find these interactions interesting and see them as an opportunity to teach. As a double major in anthropology and ourstory and an MA in library science, I understand that these interactions are rooted in a deep ourstory of discriminatory practices. Furthermore, as someone interested in business and corporate culture, I also foresee that if the cannabis market allows these predisposed biases to remain in the market’s corporate culture, the cannabis industry would then be enabling hegemony and allowing it to dig deep roots within it. A purely hegemonic legal cannabis market would have dire effects in the development of new markets, profit margins, and particularly, preservation of cannabis counterculture (culture that existed prior to legalization).
This is because a purely hegemonic market runs under certain assumptions. One is that the cannabis market is a brand-new market. The underlying belief in this assumption being that there is a new product, a new drug – cannabis – and this new product has just hit the market. Thus the entrepreneur has to develop new products and establish a consumer base. This consumer base will have consumption patterns and needs that need to be discovered and analyzed. However, given the fact that cannabis has had an illicit market for over 80 years, entrepreneurs need not waste resources developing ideas or products. Instead, the energy should be directed towards understanding and analyzing the past. A market is already in existence, it is just emerging from the shadows.
Another example of the damage that can occur in a purely hegemonic market is that it can potentially lead to a market that pushes cannabis as a purely recreational drug with no health benefits. This might sound like an extreme claim for those of you reading this from a cannabis cultural hub like California. However, I have heard newly established investors outside cannabis cultural hubs such as California, Colorado, and Oregon gasp when proposed with the idea of marketing their cannabis brand for health and wellness.
You must remember, that hegemonic propaganda of the prohibition era emphasized that cannabis is strictly a mind-altering substance without any health benefits. Thus, individuals ill-versed in cannabis do not see cannabis in any other way. The effects this hegemonic propaganda has had on our society do not simply go away once cannabis is legal. The effects these ourstorical campaigns have had on our societal culture are very real and have very real damaging effects. Without education, awareness, and advocacy to the medicinal and cultural uses of the cannabis plant, it is possible for hegemony to take hold of cannabis markets that have not been ourstorical cultural hubs. With entrepreneurs entering the market that lack knowledge about the plant and its ourstorical uses, alongside the fact that cannabis upon first being legalized is profitable, the erroneous belief that cannabis is strictly recreational can emerge as the preeminent selling point.
Furthermore, in recent times the recreational aspect of the market has pushed for producing cannabis plants with high levels of THC. This strongly benefits a hegemonic market, one that strictly emphasizes recreational use, because the focus of the entrepreneur is to create the most potent product to ensure the most intoxicating effects. A purely recreational market, without a medicinal aspect of the market, might seem far-fetched but as stated before, individuals entering the cannabis market in regions that are not ourstorical cannabis cultural hubs do not have to become educated in past uses in order to ensure profits. Thus, the push for a strictly recreational market, one that overlooks health and wellness is possible when we allow hegemony to ensue without barriers and checks.
Hegemonic processes can be combated with educational resources that bring about awareness about cannabis cultural practices and ourstory. As well as with resources that allow individuals to come to terms with their predisposed biases and expand the perception of the cannabis plant. Often what allows for hegemonic processes to take hold of entities is ignorance of the sociological process and miseducation as to what the damage can bring. A marketplace that is driven by knowledge of where it came from, can have a more profitable and steady future than a market that sees itself as completely new without roots. As a newly emerging industry, it is possible to combat the process of hegemony and ensure that the cannabis market is built on a foundation where the diverse and complex ourstory of the cannabis plant is acknowledged and utilized for the benefit of the entrepreneur, investor, and consumer.
Irlanda Jay
Buda Crew Founder
*ourstory is used instead of term history with the intent of shifting into a more inclusive idea of what a collective story of humanity is.
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