Josephine & Billie\u2019s is the first dispensary in South Los Angeles focused on being made-for-and-run by women of color. The store is named in honor of entertainment legends Josephine Baker and Billie Holiday, two outspoken Black cannabis enthusiasts in the early 20th century. Baker and Holiday were ostracized for their use of cannabis and became unintentional advocates before their time. The celebrated performers used their respective talents to bend the rules and open the door for future rule-defying women.<\/p>\n
Whitney Beatty and Ebony Andersen joined forces to open Josephine & Billie\u2019s in 2021. Thoughtfully designed as a throwback, the dispensary is based on a teapad\u2014the Black version of a speakeasy\u2014where patrons smoked cannabis, drank and socialized in the 1920s and 1930s. The destination dispensary carries everything from tinctures to lotions to sex oils to flower and focuses on education, experience, inclusivity and community-building, with an eye for social justice and reform.<\/p>\n
By creating safe spaces for cannabis education, Beatty and Andersen are encouraging women of color to let go of the stigma of cannabis. \u201cWe hear it all the time that they don\u2019t feel comfortable, safe or heard,\u201d Beatty says.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Directors Guild of America\u2019s (DGA) award-winning reality television director and executive who\u2019s now working in the cannabis space, Beatty advanced from an assistant all the way to a senior executive over the course of her dynamic 15-year career. Breaking boundaries is her jam.<\/p>\n
Beatty wants to share her experiences and lessons learned with women of color who are also passionate about paving a path for future generations of women. \u201cI never want to see someone have to work so hard to get to where I am,\u201d she says. \u201cIf I can be a steppingstone\u2014if they can take the lessons that I\u2019ve learned and apply them and make their lives easier and be able to streamline their processes, any of
those things\u2014that\u2019s a win.<\/p>\n
A calm force to be reckoned with, Andersen enjoyed a highly successful 17-year career as a land use specialist in Southern California, a position that gave her immense insight into how she could assist the newly legal cannabis industry. Andersen\u2019s pivot from urban planner to cannabis consultant allowed her to manage several large-scale cannabis projects, including huge cultivation facilities, expansive manufacturing plants and Josephine and Billie\u2019s dispensaries in four states.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Andersen recounts times she faced discrimination as a woman in the workplace. \u201cThere was a lot of sexism,\u201d she says. \u201cBut then I saw the blatant racism on top of it, right? It was rough. I call it career trauma. I had to learn as a woman, you literally have to take up space. You have to be assertive. You have to make your voice heard.\u201d Andersen advises other women to live and work unapologetically\u2014precisely like Josephine Baker and Billie Holiday did in their day. In fact, the very name of the dispensary harks back to the larger-than-life entertainers and role models.<\/p>\n
Whitney Beatty and Ebony Andersen are building new inroads for LA\u2019s 1.3 million residents who are women of color.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The stage is set: It\u2019s time for the show. \u00a0<\/p>\n
This story was originally published in issue 48 of the\u00a0print edition<\/a>\u00a0of Cannabis Now. Read it now on the Cannabis Now\u00a0iTunes app<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n The post Black Girl Magic Aims High<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Josephine & Billie\u2019s is the first dispensary in South Los Angeles focused on being made-for-and-run by women of color. The store is named in honor of entertainment legends Josephine Baker and Billie Holiday, two outspoken Black cannabis enthusiasts in the early 20th century. Baker and Holiday were ostracized for theirContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":562,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[148,50,1077,17392,85,17393,510,4229,5429,1319,16958,17223],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68090"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/562"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68090"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68090\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68091,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68090\/revisions\/68091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nRead More: Black Girl Magic Aims High<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"