Community Care is Essential
Kush Queen has always created space to celebrate community, even before the world was engulfed by the Covid-19 pandemic. As a cannabis wellness company that began as a femme Instagram community, taking self-care a step higher is embedded in our ethos. In this blog, we take a moment to pause and reflect on what we’ve learned this year, and what stands out most is the value of community care.
To have access to cannabis and participate in this industry are privileges that we reflect on daily. We believe that it is our duty to use our privilege to advocate for normalization, safe access, and equitable representation for all.
Essential Supplies for Essential Workers
We felt grateful and blessed to be deemed an essential business early in the Covid-19 pandemic. That gratitude quickly became the motivation to do more to help those who were risking their health every day by simply doing their jobs.
Instead of celebrating The Biggest 4/20 EVER, Team Kush Queen got down to business supporting hospitals and essential workers on the frontlines of the pandemic. From gifting masks and CBD products to essential workers, to sourcing and bottling hand sanitizer for hospitals, and later, sending PPE to protestors in Portland, we made it our mission to practice community care as often as we could.
Pride 2020 - Beyond the Szn
As long time members of the cannabis community, we recognize the parallel histories of LGBTQ+ rights and cannabis legalization. Proposition 215, which legalized medical cannabis use in California in 1996, was written by gay activist, Dennis Peron. Peron, known as the Father of Medical Cannabis, worked to make the plant accessible to folks dying of HIV/AIDS, including his partner, Jonathan West. This is community care at its essence.
To honor that history and community, each year we choose an organization committed to the LGBTQ+ community to partner with in honor of Pride. This year we partnered with AsylumConnect, an organization that connects LGBTQ+ asylum seekers in the United States with vital resources through technology. At a time when the rights of immigrants, refugees, and the LGBTQ+ community are under attack, community care is the only path to survival.
Check out the Instagram Live with Kush Queen founder, Olivia Alexander, and AsylumConnect Vice President, Hans How
We Are Our Community
It’s no secret that the war on drugs has been used as a tool to discriminate against Black and Latinx communities since its inception. This year we saw an uprising against police brutality and raciscm as the world witnessed the cruel murder of George Floyd at the hands of law enforcement.
In solidarity with the movement against systemic racism, we immediately shifted our focus to elevate the voices of Black activists and made donations to organizations like BYP100, Minnesota Freedom Fund, and BLM LA, to name a few. To take a stand against hate speech and discriminatory practices, we pulled our advertising dollars from Facebook and Instagram in the #stophateforprofit campaign. Our participation in the cannabis industry is a privilege that we earn by advocating for social justice reform and we believe that community care in cannabis is mandatory.
Check out this independent report on the cannabis brands making a difference.
How We Show Our Love
Decriminalizing cannabis is about more than legal access to clean products. Decriminalization also creates opportunities for drug war reparations through record expungement, a process that removes prior convictions for offences that are no longer criminal from one’s permanent record.
The downside of record expungement is the lengthy (and expensive) legal process one must undertake in order to clear their record. While some cities and states have approved blanket expungements for certain convictions, most people have to address each prior offence in its respective jurisdiction to take advantage of new laws.
This is where National Expungement Week steps in to help provide the legal services needed to those who qualify for but cannot afford record expungement. NEW is organized by social justice advocates who are working to expand into more cities and host clinics year-round. To help their efforts, we made a donation to support the Los Angeles area hubs and sent our very own OG Kush Queen Angela out to lend a hand at the clinics.
If you want to support NEW’s efforts, you can purchase select products from the Show Your Love Marketplace that directly benefit the cause.
Make Community Care Part of Your Self-Care Routine
If self-care is an act of self-compassion, community care is an act of collective compassion. In a time of social isolation and political polarization, community care may be the only remedy we have.
How do you practice community care? Tag us on the ‘Gram @kushqueenco and let us know!