BROADCASTS.com

b'Grassroots Marketing talks about Life Enhancement Services and Fighting the Good Fight for Medical Cannabis with Hakeem Brown.

Hakeem Brown has been fighting the good fight in the medical cannabis industry for years. Despite facing racism and raids as a Black grower and dispensary owner, he continues to push forward and provide medicine through his company, Life Enhancement Services. With his company, Life Enhancement Services, he is providing medicine for his patients.


\\u201cI think early on, police were used to arresting Black and Brown men for cannabis, and just
because suddenly the state changed it, in their minds, nothing had changed,\\u201d Brown says.
\\u201cCannabis is one of the only cases in the U.S. where you\\u2019re guilty until proven innocent, and that
gives law enforcement a lot of leeway to arrest you. I\\u2019ve been arrested multiple times, raided,
arrested with my son in the car. All they had to do was look at the paperwork and see we were
doing everything legally, but they couldn\\u2019t get that into their heads.\\u201d


This type of brutal prejudice would have soured most from the industry, but not Brown. He
keeps pushing for patient rights and advocating for cannabis and continues to do what he loves
and work in the industry.


\\u201cThat\\u2019s the story of my life, being raided by officers who were overly eager, being treated like a
drug dealer instead of a real cannabis advocate. So, it was tough getting into legal cannabis,
because you have to have the money, and because of the assumptions people make. But I
want to keep fighting and keep pushing to show people that Black cannabis dispensary owners
aren\\u2019t just criminals.\\u201d


In 2011, the referendum to impose a business license tax rate of 10 percent on the sale of
medical cannabis products within the city was passed, thanks in part to Brown\\u2019s support.
Thanks to his efforts, Life Enhancement Services and Brown are able to serve the community
with legal cannabis. Cannabis activists with Re-Start Vallejo and Vallejo Patients Coalition
supported this move.

To support Brown, medical patients in Vallejo can patronize his store, Life Enhancement
Services. Others can follow along with his story and continue to support Black cannabis
entrepreneurs, criminal record expungement, and a final end to the racist war on drugs.'