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Any West Coast dispensary owner will tell you this business is no walk in the park. The green rush is like the gold rush: Many have skin in the game, but just a few will strike it rich. That\u2019s especially true in Oregon, a state that licenses cannabis retailers per capita in far greater numbers than comparable states (we\u2019re talking three times that of its northern neighboring state, Washington). More licenses mean more competition\u2014great for consumer prices, but rough on businesses. Competing with mom-and-pop dispensaries are a few large chains such as Nectar, Chalice and La Mota that some see as the only cannabusinesses capable of surviving in today\u2019s oversaturated market. <\/p>\n
So how does David beat Goliath when this is the battleground? After speaking with Green Muse<\/a> Dispensary owners Karanja Crews and Nicole Kennedy, it seems that the weed Goliaths may not need to be defeated for the Davids to prosper. \u201cI don\u2019t feel successful,\u201d Crews tells me. \u201cI\u2019m just being real.\u201d<\/p>\n I already know some of their accomplishments, and I\u2019m about to get into them when Kennedy interjects: \u201cWe\u2019re not in multiple locations like Nectar or any of those big companies,\u201d she says. \u201cBut we\u2019ve seen a lot of shops close from the time that we\u2019ve opened. I think our ability to last in the industry for as long as we\u2019ve been here\u2014that speaks to our success.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n As of 2022, only two percent<\/a> of the nation\u2019s cannabis businesses are Black-owned. For Crews and Kennedy, the learning curve in the cannabis industry was steep. \u201cThe industry is still very exclusive and hard to get into,\u201d Kennedy says. Crews didn\u2019t have retail experience outside of a few retail jobs as a teenager. And Kennedy says the only entrepreneurial experience under her belt came from watching her parents run their own businesses. But their dynamic is well-balanced: Crews has a talent for product curation, and Kennedy\u2019s been handling the HR and policy regulation side of things.<\/p>\n They were both teachers in the Portland School District before they teamed up to start Green Muse (formerly known as Green Hop) in 2018, the world\u2019s first historical hip-hop-themed dispensary. They\u2019ve uniquely color-coded terpene profiles to match various musical artists and genres, including blues, jazz, rock and reggae. Hip-hop memorabilia adorn the walls, counters and display cases. When you enter the bright green and yellow Craftsman style home-turned-shop, you can tell you\u2019re walking into a place that\u2019s well loved. The opposite of sterile, modern, chic storefronts that come a dime a dozen in today\u2019s market, this space and its treasures are asking you to stay a while and make a connection.<\/p>\n The budtender on duty is Dr. J. He\u2019s worked for Green Muse off and on since the doors opened and tells me it\u2019s fun when they all get to talk about a new strain and decide which artist fits the vibe, or when someone walks in and asks about that Bootsy Collins strain they used to have\u2014and he\u2019ll remember exactly what they\u2019re talking about.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Sure, there are chain dispensaries that\u2019ll always be a threat to small, independent dispensaries, but Green Muse has something that can\u2019t ever be taken away: community re-investment. They\u2019ve been the recipient of several grants because this teacher duo is doing more than creating a one-of-a-kind retail experience. Rather, they\u2019re helping young people of color break into an industry that\u2019s highly whitewashed. \u201cThe grants allow us to run Green Muse Academy,\u201d Kennedy says.<\/p>\n Dr. J was in the second cohort of Green Muse\u2019s workforce development academy where primarily Black youth (ages 21-25) learn about the cannabis industry while earning a living wage. \u201cWhen Dr. J came in, he had just started going to the school of naturopathic medicine,\u201d Kennedy says. \u201cHe then graduated from Green Muse Academy with cannabis knowledge and returned to Green Muse as a naturopathic physician. It was a full circle moment.\u201d<\/p>\n Academy cohorts range up to a dozen people or so, and while participants may start with various workforce experiences, they have no cannabis experience. According to Kennedy, the last cohort was able to visit a farm to learn about growing, then go to a laboratory and learn how cannabis gets tested and how they determine THC levels in a plant\u2014all while making a decent living. \u201cI don\u2019t know where you can do that in the cannabis industry,\u201d she says.\u00a0<\/p>\n In 2023, the Future Ready Oregon<\/a> grant was awarded to Portland Opportunities Industrialization Center, Green Muse\u2019s partner in the career training program. The City of Portland is unique in requiring some municipal cannabis sales tax revenues to be reinvested into the city\u2019s communities most harmed by cannabis arrests and convictions, which is how Green Muse also received city grants disbursed through the nonprofit NuProject<\/a>.<\/p>\n It\u2019s clear that Green Muse adds more value to its community than just another multi-state cannabis retailer. I ask Crews if he feels connected to his community. \u201cOh, absolutely,\u201d he says without hesitation. \u201cI think that\u2019s our strong point.\u201d<\/p>\n The post Keeping Portland Weird: Green Muse Dispensary<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Any West Coast dispensary owner will tell you this business is no walk in the park. The green rush is like the gold rush: Many have skin in the game, but just a few will strike it rich. That\u2019s especially true in Oregon, a state that licenses cannabis retailers perContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":519,"featured_media":80350,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[14588,50,141,1077,9837,185,18240,636],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80349"}],"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\/519"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80349"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80349\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80351,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80349\/revisions\/80351"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/WuTangForever.jpg\")
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\nRead More: Keeping Portland Weird: Green Muse Dispensary<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"