\u201cI got arrested in \u201905 for being snitched on, and that being snitched on allowed me to qualify to open a f—ing dispensary. How does that happen?\u201d Blunt questioned during a recent interview with Cannabis Business Times<\/em>. \u201cIt was generally meant for me to be in this space, and I never knew. I just kept doing what I thought would get me here.\u201d Family Heritage <\/strong><\/p>\n Blunt is a fifth-generation Oakland native who began selling cannabis in 1996, all while maintaining a 4.0 GPA and a full-time job in high school. <\/p>\n Part of his family heritage, cannabis was a plant Blunt viewed as an opportunity. He never thought possessing or selling it should be criminalized, he said. <\/p>\n \u201cBoth of my parents sold it, but I watched how they sold it. It was never outside on a corner,\u201d he said. \u201cI knew early on I wanted to sell weed because I smoked it and I just knew good weed, and I knew a lot of my friends wanted weed. So, for me, it was an easy transition because everywhere I worked at, I sold weed at. Yeah, I was a 4.0 student and all of that, but I liked weed and I liked going to work because that provided me money to do what I wanted to do.\u201d<\/p>\n At age 16, Blunt worked at a grocery store called Lucky\u2019s. He had 22 co-workers and 17 of them smoked cannabis, he said. <\/p>\n Not only did Blunt know when all of his co-workers received their paychecks, but, from his perspective, selling cannabis during his \u201cday job\u201d was safer than dealing with the streets and the possibility of going to jail. <\/p>\n \u201cI made more money at work than I made at work,\u201d he said. \u201cThe only way I\u2019m going to go to jail is if I\u2019m going to get snitched on. If I\u2019m on the streets, I\u2019m snitching on myself. That\u2019s kind of how I approached it. I always approached it as a business: sell weed but not going to jail.\u201d<\/p>\n Photo courtesy of Tucky Blunt<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n Drug War Era <\/strong><\/p>\n While Blunt steered clear of trouble throughout his youth, growing up as a Black man during the drug war era meant having ties to those directly impacted by the injustices of prohibition. Blunt had several friends and family members go to jail for small-money drug cases, he said. <\/p>\n In the years following then-U.S. Sen. Joe Biden\u2019s co-crafted and bipartisan Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986<\/a>, which was signed into law by President Ronald Reagan, Black people became even greater targets of stricter penalties for drug offenses. <\/p>\n According to the American Civil Liberties Union, the average federal drug sentence<\/a> for Black people was 11% higher than for whites before the Anti-Drug Abuse Act passed in 1986. Four years after the act was enacted, which included a federal mandatory minimum sentencing provision for crack cocaine offenses, the average federal drug sentence for Black people was 49% higher. <\/p>\n \u201cComing up under D.A.R.E. [Drug Abuse Resistance Education] and the Reagan era, you know, D.A.R.E. for me was for dope\u2014was for heroin, was for crack, was for meth,\u201d Blunt said. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t for cannabis. When you see the egg frying and \u2018This is your brain on drugs,\u2019 that didn\u2019t apply for me for cannabis. We laughed at that. For me, it was more so just seeing the family split up behind a plant that\u2019s legal now.\u201d<\/p>\n Early Inspiration<\/strong><\/p>\n Blunt said his inspiration to one day own and operate a dispensary derives from an errand he ran with his grandmother in 1999. The trip was to pick up some medicine from a dispensary at Telegraph Avenue and 19th Street in downtown Oakland, but Blunt did not know it was a dispensary while en route. <\/p>\n Also unbeknownst to Blunt, his grandma obtained a medical cannabis card a couple years before that trip, shortly after California became the first state to legalize medical cannabis under Proposition 215 in 1996. <\/p>\n \u201cShe just told me she was going to pick up some medicine. I didn\u2019t think nothing of it,\u201d Blunt said. \u201cShe came outside with a white bag, like, I will never forget this. She came out with a white bag. I said, \u2018Granny, what\u2019s that?\u2019 She was like, \u2018It\u2019s weed.\u2019 I said, \u2018You bought weed out of a store?\u2019 She was like, \u2018Yeah.\u2019 I said, \u2018Oh, yeah, I need one of those [stores].\u2019 She said, \u2018Well, when you get one, I\u2019ll be there every day of the week.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n From that day forward, Blunt\u2019s mission was to one day own a dispensary so he could sell cannabis legally, he said. <\/p>\n The day after running that errand with \u201cGranny,\u201d Blunt went to go get a cannabis card for himself. Within two weeks, he began working at dispensaries. With two years, he said he was growing cannabis and selling it to those dispensaries. <\/p>\n \u201cSo, seeing that, that there was an actual brick-and-mortar location for you to be able to come and buy cannabis\u2014that stuck with me,\u201d Blunt said. \u201cAt that moment, I was like, \u2018I want in.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n A Blunt Reality <\/strong><\/p>\n Immersing himself in the environment, Blunt attempted to become a dispensary owner in 2003 but was told by various business owners in San Francisco, Hayward and Oakland that \u201cBlacks would never own\u201d a business in the cannabis space. His first reaction was \u201cWhy?\u201d but he never got an answer, he said. <\/p>\n When Blunt applied to enter the cannabis space in 2003, he had the capital, he had a location, and he had a white business partner. <\/p>\n \u201cWe had all that and was just told flat out, \u2018No, y\u2019all are not going to do that. Y\u2019all Black.\u2019 That was my biggest hurdle, was being Black,\u201d he said. \u201cIf we came in as a white person with that same money, I\u2019m pretty sure I would have had a dispensary back then.\u201d<\/p>\n Two years later, Blunt found himself between jobs. <\/p>\n It was a Thursday when he had $80 of cannabis, his medical cannabis card and a registered firearm in his trunk. He was lined up to start a new job for Alameda County, home to Oakland, the following Monday. He was hoping to become a probation officer. <\/p>\n But none of that mattered to a pair of police officers who arrested Blunt for possession with intent to sell that day.<\/p>\n \u201cIn 2005, I got told on by one of the guys I was buying weed from,\u201d he said. \u201cI got told on, they pulled up, told me I got snitched on, arrested me on the spot, took me downtown, I bailed out the same night, and I just went back to selling weed. The only difference is, that time I got arrested, I had actually stepped out on the turf to sell weed for the first time ever.\u201d<\/p>\n Unfulfilled Mission<\/strong><\/p>\n Rather than drag out the case, Blunt said he took a deal that included 10 years of felony probation with a \u201cfour-way<\/a>\u201d search clause, which authorizes a search of the probationer\u2019s person, residence, vehicles and other property under his or her control. <\/p>\n His arresting officers were Ersie Joyner, who caught national news coverage<\/a> in 2021 after enduring 22 bullet wounds during a gas station shootout in West Oakland, and Randy Wingate, with whom Blunt would later cross paths. <\/p>\n Still determined to learn more on the legal side of the cannabis business, Blunt attended and graduated from Oaksterdam University, dubbed \u201cThe World\u2019s First Cannabis College,\u201d in 2008. <\/p>\n But by 2013, with his mission of one day owning a dispensary unfulfilled, he decided to call it quits and stopped selling cannabis altogether, he said. <\/p>\n \u201cI wasn\u2019t getting what I wanted out of it,\u201d Blunt said. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to think, from \u201996 to 2013, that\u2019s a long time to be trying to do something and never see really no ramifications of it. Yeah, I went to Oaksterdam. I did little things to try to get me along the way, but I literally was just tired. I hit a wall and was like, \u2018I\u2019m never going to own, so I\u2019m tired of selling weed.\u2019 And I stopped.\u201d<\/p>\n As Fate Would Have It<\/strong><\/p>\n In the spring of 2017, Oakland City Council members enacted an Equity Permit Program to address disparities in the cannabis industry by prioritizing the victims of the drug war and minimizing barriers of entry into the industry. <\/p>\n As fate would have it, Blunt got a call from his friend Mike Marshall, who told him about the program and asked if he\u2019d ever \u201ccaught\u201d a cannabis case in Oakland. Thanks to being arrested in 2005, Blunt qualified for the program. <\/p>\n Blunt met with his business partner in September 2017, went through the license application process, was approved, ended up winning a license through a lottery in January 2018, and then he became the first operational dispensary owner under the program when Blunts and Moore cut its red ribbons in November 2018. <\/p>\n \u201cMan, it was amazing,\u201d he said about his dream becoming a reality. \u201cTo open a store in the same ZIP code where you caught a felony cannabis case in, and now you\u2019re selling legal cannabis in that same ZIP code \u2026 it\u2019s kind of hard to describe the feeling. It was a lot of emotions all in one. And I still go through the emotions every time I pull up to the store. It was life-changing.\u201d<\/p>\n It All Worked Out<\/strong><\/p>\n The fateful narrative deepens.<\/p>\n When Blunts and Moore dispensary was a cash-business target of robberies in 2020, Blunt was on a Zoom call with city council members and the Oakland Police Department, he said. That\u2019s when he reconnected with Wingate, whom he hadn\u2019t talked to since his arrest in 2005. The two became friends. <\/p>\n \u201cWhen I went to try and buy a gun in 2020 and they\u2019re like, \u2018No, you can\u2019t get one.\u2019 I don\u2019t know why. I\u2019m going crazy,\u201d said Blunt, who thought his convictions were reduced to misdemeanors, sealed and expunged years earlier. <\/p>\n That\u2019s when Blunt went to Wingate for advice. His arresting officer from 15 years earlier said he had a connection at the county\u2019s district attorney\u2019s office and was willing to help Blunt navigate sealing his records, according to Blunt. <\/p>\n \u201cI went and signed two pieces of paper, the DA found why those charges weren\u2019t dismissed, she fixed all that, and now I\u2019m no longer a felon,\u201d Blunt said. \u201cI can go own a firearm all thanks to the same officer who arrested me in \u201905.\u201d<\/p>\n Even beyond cannabis, the ripple effects of Blunt\u2019s arrest are far-reaching. <\/p>\n When Blunt started his new job with Alameda County, he said he couldn\u2019t work in the probation department while his arrest case was still open. So, he was transferred to another county office, where he ended up meeting his wife. <\/p>\n He said he would not have met his wife had he not been arrested. <\/p>\n \u201cThis is some whole, intertwined deep s— that I\u2019m a part of that I had no clue I was walking that path,\u201d he said. \u201cEven sitting here talking to you about it now, it\u2019s still like pinchable, like I want to pinch myself, like, \u2018This really happened?\u2019 But that\u2019s what really happened. I got snitched on and it worked out.\u201d<\/p>\n Operating in Oakland<\/strong><\/p>\n The string of robberies targeting all-cash cannabis businesses in Oakland continued into 2021, specifically with hundreds of roving caravans taking over the city the week of Nov. 15. <\/p>\n RELATED: Bay Area Cannabis Mayhem: 175 Shots Fired, Products Worth Millions Stolen<\/strong><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Blunt said the Oakland PD has since been more receptive and responsive to businesses affected by repeated criminal activity. <\/p>\n \u201cThey actually came to my store and took fingerprints, took evidence for the first time in four years,\u201d he said. \u201cSo, that has helped. I haven\u2019t heard anything about new robberies coming up. You know, I\u2019m also into the streets and listening. But, so far, being that the criminals know that Oakland Police are no longer going to give them eight hours to roam around and target businesses, we have been a little less targeted.\u201d<\/p>\n Stepping back further to take a broader temperature of the cannabis business climate in Oakland and in California, Blunt said his dispensary doors won\u2019t be open in three years from now if the current tax rates and regulatory hurdles continue. He referred to California\u2019s state-legal program as a rob-Peter-to-pay-Paul scenario under 2016\u2019s voter-approved Proposition 64 and the subsequent Medical and Adult Use Cannabis Regulation and Safety Act (MAUCRSA).<\/p>\n While Gov. Gavin Newsom called<\/a> for cannabis tax reform in his budget proposal last month, the state\u2019s industry continues to be marred by a multilayered tax structure<\/a>, security costs, regulatory burdens, falling prices, and overproduction from lack of open retail markets, which in turn have allowed the illicit market to continue to thrive. <\/p>\n \u201cBusiness is great as far as being open, having a place in the community to enhance the community,\u201d Blunt said. \u201cWe bring in money. But the overtaxation and the amount of money we spend on security is making it where there\u2019s no profit at all. So, it\u2019s lovely to do what I\u2019m doing, but in California, it\u2019s got about another three years and it\u2019s going to be over with. And that\u2019s not just me. That\u2019s everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n Lacking Representation <\/strong><\/p>\n Blunt did say it\u2019s an amazing feeling to be able to sell cannabis legally in his city, especially in regard to opening his doors 15 years after he was told \u201cBlacks would never own\u201d in the cannabis space. <\/p>\n
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