Photo by Amanda C. Wallace, photo illustration by Johansen Peralta
Why this cannabis activist sees a bright green future for Brooklyn and beyond
'New York is going to be the capital of cannabis,' says Solonje Burnett on this episode of 'Brooklyn Magazine: The Podcast'
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It is legal for New Yorkers 21 and older to possess up to three ounces of cannabis, and it has been since April.
But there is no legal way to obtain pot (or weed or cush or grass or Mary Jane or dope or whatever you call it) until next year. But rest assured, full blown legalization is coming to New York—and when it does, Solonje Burnett predicts the city will become the weed capital of the world.
“You know New York is going to be the capital of cannabis. It’s not going to be Amsterdam. It’s not going to be Oregon or California or Arizona,” says Burnett, who is this week’s guest on “Brooklyn Magazine: The Podcast.” “It’s going to be right here because this is where the majority of people come when they’re traveling.”
Burnett is a co-founder along with Danniel Swatosh of Humble Bloom, an education and advocacy platform that works with brands in the cannabis and CBD space to take an inclusive, educational and transparent approach to branding and marketing. A natural-born connector, Burnett wants to bring the world together, one puff at a time.
“We see that cannabis is truly a conduit for broad discussions,” she says. “It really touches on everything. It’s not something that you can just say, ‘Oh this is recreational.’ It’s political in so many ways because of how many ways it can be used, both as a tool for healing as well as one for oppression.”
Burnett is a Bushwick-based community leader, activist and a self-described humanist, working to connect communities through Humble Bloom’s seminars and consulting work. The goal, she says, is to break down stereotypes as well as dismantle structural inequities and biased business practices in the inchoate legal cannabis marketplace.
There is, she says, “a war on this plant and the people it touches. Seeing this opportunity to truly educate our communities in New York about what the plant was, directing them to brands that were making the right choice around sustainability around inclusion” is what guides her work in the cannabis space.
“Most of these companies that you see are really leaning into profit over people,” she says of the big players in the industry where recreational cannabis is already legal. “And that leads to the destruction of our communities and our environment and our society.”
We unpack that in our interview today, and we talk about her background: Burnett is a first generation American, a child of Caribbean immigrants who was raised in lily white Newton Massachusetts, where she thrived. Today she uses her adaptability and ability to bridge cultural divides to make the world both greener and keener.
“Not growing up in a neighborhood that’s just like me allowed me to be more palatable to those that were in the community where I was actually immersed,” she says. “The ability to survive in the environments that aren’t you—[to] go through the traumas that are associated with it—I think that made me a bridge to other communities in so many ways.”
Check out this episode of “Brooklyn Magazine: The Podcast” for more. Subscribe and listen wherever you get your podcasts.
