(I'm a 40 something white guy. I share that because we are examining a topic that involves women, minorities and cannabis. Meaning that I will be writing about two topics that I may not be best suited to address.)
From my time in NYC, I can assure you weed delivery services are not uncommon, albeit damn expensive. By phoning a dispatch service, a bike courier would soon arrive with a backpack of 2-gram plastic containers selling for between $75 and $100. (And yes, Mathpert, that works out to between $37.50 and $50 per gram.) The products they peddled were often potent, but more often than not hydroponically grown and rarely flushed properly, leaving you with cannabis that had a salty, bitter aftertaste. The Rockefeller Laws in New York regarding cannabis have always made acquisition of flower, top shelf or otherwise, a risky undertaking, yet if anyone ever needed fast access to cannabis, it's anyone living in the five boroughs.
A recent edition of "GQ" features an article about a weed delivery service in New York City called the "Green Angels." It was started by a former model, also a Mormon, who brought on a team of all women as dispatchers and couriers, many former models themselves. (This isn't the basis for an HBO show...yet.)
The author spends time with both the proprietor, a woman he gave the eye-rolling alias of "Honey," and several of the couriers. Honey explains that the Angels are "selling a fantasy of an attractive, well-educated, presentable young woman who wants to get you high." They offer clients eighths of flower for $50, caramel lollipops for $30, bottles of tincture for $80 and vape pens for a whopping $140.
Honey says she has a 100 percent markup on indoor hydro weed that she buys from Cali growers for more than $3,000 per pound. In a good month, she takes home $150,000, tax-free.
The couriers speak about how this has allowed them to make more money than at straight jobs that were "soul sucking," with one courier stating she now makes between $1,000 and $1,300 a week. Which is great, as financial independence for women is something we should all support.
But a few things bothered me.
The couriers don't seem particularly knowledgeable about cannabis, with one instructing a customer to store her purchase in a double sealed plastic bag in her fridge. When asked how strong a certain cannabis infused edible is, she responds, "It's pretty strong, you can eat half." (Idea: Maybe spend a small fraction of that $150K a month in profit on having them tested at an out-of-state lab.) One of the Angels tells of a box of edibles mistakenly taken by her landlord, and inadvertently shared with kids who "ended up staring at the wall for hours."
But more disturbing is that this is what I would define as the epitome of white privilege.
As Honey states, they have never been busted in the eight years they have been in operation, as "good looking girls don't get searched." I wouldn't argue that point, but would add good-looking white girls don't get searched. Only one of the couriers profiled is a person of color, and perhaps there are more that didn't make it into the article. But stop and frisk policies by the NYPD have been in place for over a decade until recently, and they haven't focused on anyone who is white—attractive woman or not.
And as there are POC doing time in Rikers for performing the same service, it begs the question: Would the Green Angels be as fawned over if the company was operated by a group comprised of minorities, including young men? What does it say that no one is attempting to sell the "fantasy" of having "an attractive, young, well educated, presentable young person of color who wants to get you high?"
Minorities are vastly underrepresented in the cannabis industry, but groups such as the excellent Minority Cannabis Business Association are working tirelessly to change that. Until that happens, perhaps GQ would like to focus on knowledgeable industry reps who aren't pretty young white women.
Cannabis delivery in Bend, Oregon.
