Black-owned marijuana firm appears to interrupt into leisure market, reinvest in communities

More heartfelt than selling point, two Detroit entrepreneurs work their way into Michigan’s recreational marijuana industry on their own terms.

In the pursuit of more diversity in Michigan’s marijuana industry, capital investors are eager to partner with minority partners to gain access to the competitive marketplace, but Mark Stockdale and Sahir Al-Salam turned those offers down.

“They weren’t in the culture,” said Stockdale, a 43-year-old Detroit native who founded Al-Salam, 37, one of the state’s first all-black marijuana companies. “They were only here for the money. They weren’t on the same frequency as me. “

The couple took a less traveled route, but after three years of learning, delays, and setbacks, they reached their destination. Your company, Michigan Agricultural Services, plans to open a 25,500-square-foot licensed grow facility in Inkster this fall. The groundbreaking for the project took place in May.

Instead of accepting the big offers, which were often “predatory” and had to give up a disproportionate share of the property, sometimes up to 70%, they started looking for their own financing. In the end, they were supported with more than $ 1 million.

“Our community has left its money behind,” said Al-Salam. “We really got our community involved, friends, family, everyone who listens to us and understands the benefits of our birthplace.

“We bought land in Inkster. We didn’t find out everything. We didn’t have a big plan. We found things out over time. “

Al-Salam and Stockdale are a rarity in an industry that Al-Salam said is “still run by white men.”

“I just want to make sure we have a seat at the table,” said Al-Salam, who said he grew up among neighbors whose lives too often resulted in prison, death and poverty. It was a world in which people had a “survival mentality” and saw no chance beyond their next meal, she said.

Al-Salam hopes that the legitimacy her company has gained will enable her to support others with the same background. She wants to “give everyone a chance to eat”.

“My father and even I are from a neighborhood that has been badly hit by the war on drugs,” she said. “My parents had me when I was 13 and 14 years old. So imagine what my parents experienced as young adults with very young children. At 14 he had to feed a daughter. Imagine what that looks like. With a guy who’s from this area, your first thought isn’t getting a job in the grocery store. “

Stockdale’s affinity for growth began in his grandmother’s garden near Mack and Van Dyke Avenues in east Detroit.

He was 6 and they didn’t grow cannabis. Corn, beets, mustard and okra were their strong points.

Mark Stockdale, co-founder of Michigan Agricultural Services, learned how to garden as a child from his grandmother Julia. Photo courtesy Michigan Agricultural Services.

While Stockdale was growing vegetables in his grandmother’s garden in the mid-1980s, his neighborhood crumbled amid the crack cocaine epidemic.

“It changed the whole neighborhood,” remembers Stockdale. “I remember going to school and someone came in and kidnapped my midday lady.

“It was normal for me as a kid and I didn’t understand that it was crazy until I went to college and could compare myself to people from Livonia and Saginaw – every other city except Detroit.”

Stockdale, who attended Detroit’s Martin Martin Luther King Jr. High School, never graduated from college but did attend Western Michigan University, where he missed 40 credits behind an electrical engineering degree.

Al-Salam, a Detroit Denby High School graduate, played basketball and worked at Foot Action while attending a small college in Pepper Dike, Ohio. When the tuition fees got too much, she dropped out.

Al-Salam and Stockdale met nearly a decade ago when they both ran small home-grow operations and worked as medical marijuana nurses to hone their craft. A Californian breeder joined the two and they started exchanging ideas and sharing tips and techniques.

“Mark started giving me good advice and looking after me as a breeder and as a person,” said Al-Salam, who acts as the community contact and head of investor relations for the company. “And in those conversations he always said to me: ‘Man, one day we will have a breeding facility.’

“This is getting serious and we’re going to take the things we’re doing here to the next level. The world has to see that. “

The three-year journey began shortly after Michigan voters legalized recreational marijuana in 2018.

They ended up choosing Inkster. The market in Detroit, which is not yet taking shape, has been overwhelmed by interest rates that have driven up real estate costs, Al-Salam said.

“It just feels like home and the laws have us there,” said Al-Salam, whose relatives, originally from Alabama and Georgia, first immigrated to Inkster generations ago before moving to nearby Detroit spread out.

Michigan’s Recreational Marijuana Bill, passed by voters in 2018, included a social justice component designed to improve access to the industry for those who were historically disproportionately affected by the marijuana ban. The concept has been used in other states that have legalized marijuana, usually by offering license discounts, free business services, and licensing opportunities, but Michigan’s industry continues to lack diversity.

The Marijuana Regulatory Agency conducted a survey of people with stakes in licensed marijuana companies in December and found that only 3.8% were black and 1.5% were Hispanic or Latino. Michigan’s population is approximately 14% black and 5.3% Hispanic or Latino, according to the latest US Census estimates.

Some of the most aggressive social justice efforts have been launched in Detroit, where city law gives preferential treatment to long-term residents and those with criminal convictions related to marijuana; However, the program’s constitutionality is being challenged in federal court where a judge last week called it “likely unconstitutional,” meaning the components of the social justice law likely need to be abolished or adjusted.

Marijuana regulator director Andrew Brisbo hired a group of nearly 25 mostly black business owners, politicians and community advocates last year to come up with recommendations that could help expand the diversity of the marijuana market. He called it the Racial Equity Advisory Workgroup, and his final recommendations were published in January.

This gives rise to proposals for mentoring programs, new license categories for smaller businesses, new taxes to fund social equity startups, corporate partnership plans, educational programs, and an exchange, but few of the proposals have taken shape.

“The industry is not diverse at all,” said Al-Salam.

“The problem is neighborhood stagnation,” Stockdale said. “We are way behind our colleagues – way behind us. We don’t have a position that we can request for $ 10 million. “

When companies open their businesses in poorer and blacker communities, they rarely invest there again, Al-Salam said.

“The same thing happens to these dispensaries as to the liquor stores, just like the grocery stores,” she said. “It only takes the church’s money and doesn’t live in our church.”

Rendered courtesy of Michigan Agricultural Services.

Stockdale and Al-Salam hope their breakthrough in the marijuana market will serve as a path for others.

According to corporate attorney Chrisitina McPhail-Stockdale, wife of Mark Stockdale, Michigan Agricultural Services plans to have approximately a third of its 8,000 square foot growing business up and running by fall.

She said the facility will start with up to eight employees and grow to about 50 “simply” until all of the growth is operational.

“A lot of people didn’t think this was possible because the industry doesn’t look or reflect it,” Al-Salam said. “Now they are starting to believe a little more …

“Everything we’ve talked about in these cellars really comes true.”

More about MLive:

Marijuana samples collected like evidence from the crime scene

Michigan is moving forward with plans to get Delta 8 THC. to restrict

Loophole allows Delta-8 THC gas stations to be sold

Terpenes, not THC, are the future

Laboratory protects the public with microscopes and microwaves

Lawsuit alleges discrimination against Detroit licensing program

Michigan communities share $ 10 million in tax revenue

Insight into the leisure retail experience

The marijuana stock market could be coming to Michigan

New taxes proposed by the stock exchange to encourage minority investment

Michigan wants to improve access to the marijuana market

Michigan companies that build licensed tugs grow over 500,000 crops

Marijuana is thriving in the coronavirus-changed market