"40,000 people are in prison for doing the same thing that we are doing every day". For most of the country, cannabis legalization is creating enormous opportunities. Unfortunately, many of the people responsible for creating this opportunity can not capitalize on it because they are in prison. Industry veteran and co-founder of The Last Prisoner Project, Andrew DeAngelo joins co-hosts Ross O'Brien and Maggie Kelly from Bonaventure Equity to explain how they are helping the victims through this devastating atrocity. Episode sponsored by Jesse Grillo Marketing Produced by PodConX Cannabis Capital - https://podconx.com/podcasts/cannabis-capital Ross O'Brien - https://podconx.com/guests/ross-obrien Maggie Kelly - https://podconx.com/guests/maggie-kelly Bonaventure Equity - https://www.bvequity.com/ Andrew DeAngelo - https://podconx.com/guests/andrew-deangelo Last Prisoners Project - https://www.lastprisonerproject.org Cannabis Consulting - https://www.andrewdeangelo.com Jesse Grill Marketing - https://jessegrillo.com/
"40,000 people are in prison for doing the same thing that we are doing every day".
For most of the country, cannabis legalization is creating enormous opportunities. Unfortunately, many of the people responsible for creating this opportunity can not capitalize on it because they are in prison. Industry veteran and co-founder of The Last Prisoner Project, Andrew DeAngelo joins co-hosts Ross O'Brien and Maggie Kelly from Bonaventure Equity to explain how they’re addressing the inequities caused by the war on drugs. Episode sponsored by Jesse Grillo Marketing
Cannabis Capital - https://podconx.com/podcasts/cannabis-capital
Ross O'Brien - https://podconx.com/guests/ross-obrien
Maggie Kelly - https://podconx.com/guests/maggie-kelly
Bonaventure Equity - https://www.bvequity.com/
Andrew DeAngelo - https://podconx.com/guests/andrew-deangelo
Last Prisoner Project - https://www.lastprisonerproject.org
Cannabis Consulting - https://www.andrewdeangelo.com
Jesse Grill Marketing - https://jessegrillo.com/
BV Andrew DeAngelo
Maggie Kelly: [00:00:00] Hello listeners, and welcome to cannabis capital. The podcast, where we dig into the business and finance of the cannabis economy. I'm Maggie Kelly co-host with the one and only Rosseau Bryan venture, capitalists and author of the book. Canada's capital Russ. How you doing today?
Ross O'Brien: Well, Megan, I feel like I say the same thing every week. I'm excited. I can't wait for our guests today. I can't wait for the cannabis economy challenge. I feel like I'm on a roll here. And every week just there's more and more exciting things happening. So I'm delighted to be back and welcome listeners.
And as always, thank you, Megan.
Maggie Kelly: So I'm excited too. And yes, we do need to get some new super-low actives because fantastic and excited are overused these days, especially by us. I feel like these interviews are professional self care. I don't know if you feel that way too, but I don't even know if that's actually a term. You heard it here first folks, but these interviews are such a delight.
We speak with some really interesting people. And today is no exception today. Our guest is none other than Andrew de Angelo [00:01:00] co-founder of Harbor side, the California cannabis industry association, and the last prisoner project. That just really skims the surface.
But before we get started, it's the time we all know and love. It's the cannabis economy challenge our weekly challenged to see if listeners can identify an industry or sector that is not impacted by cannabis legalization. Ross' currently sits undefeated, but today could be the day.
I really like this week. Submission Ross. This challenge comes from bill in Raleigh and his submission is the dairy industry. So what say move.
Ross O'Brien: I love it, Maggie. Well, this one's really interesting. So I guess bill and Raleigh has been enjoying his Oreos and glasses of milk while he's been consuming and doing his self care. I. I love this. This is a super interesting, and to go back for those new listeners, what we're talking about here is the cannabis is a global macro economy.
We believe that cannabis has reached the boardrooms of every company and every [00:02:00] industry period. And a great example of this is the dairy industry. First of all, I don't know if you know this, but Ben and Jerry's has a CBD infused. Ice cream. So, just on its base, it's something that consumers are embracing in all verticals and all sectors in particular, when you get into everything from nutraceuticals to to desserts and ice cream.
And I'm remembering at the end. I think it was the end of last year that there's actually some research that has been started. And I think there was some funding from the USDA to do this where there's a whole bunch of research on what happens to cows. If you feed them. And so I find that interesting because this is the exact conversation, right?
As soon as you open up the proverbial Pandora's box of what is encapsulated in this plant that we don't fully understand yet, if you start to look at all the different applications and the fact that there is legitimate research going on about , feeding, cows hemp, and how that will influence the, the feeding industry, I think is really, really compelling and a great example of why we're to use the super-low again, excited [00:03:00] to be where we are today.
Maggie Kelly: Okay. Well, I wouldn't mind some CBD ice cream right now. So Ben and Jerry, or been, and, or Jerry, if you're listening we live in Asheville, North Carolina, please send a right away. So. I think you still sit undefeated listeners, if you think you can prove him wrong, please visit cannabis Capitol podcasts.com to submit your challenge.
And it could wind up on a future episode now onto the show featuring Andrew de Angelo.
Andrew DeAngelo: hi everybody. I'm Andrew de Angelo and my blunt truth about the cannabis economy is. 40,000 people are still locked up in prison for doing the same thing that all of us are talking about on this show, doing every single.
Maggie Kelly: Andrew, we're so happy. You've joined us today. I feel you are quite emblematic of the cannabis economy. You're a [00:04:00] co-founder of a business. Co-founder of a notable nonprofit co-founder of an influential cannabis association in the first state to legalize.
And that just, as I said earlier, skims the surface. So would you kick us off by providing our listeners some background on yourself and your expansive career though?
Andrew DeAngelo: I would love to, I was introduced to cannabis as a teenager in the 1980s. Many of your listeners probably know of my older brother, Steve de Angelo. Steve is 10 years older than me. And by the time I was in high school, he was already a well established. Cannabis entrepreneur and cannabis activist and he needed some help.
So he naturally turned to his little brother at that time. I was an athlete. I was. I just been injured and I was in a lot of physical pain. And so I was ready to take that joint that he handed me one day in my mom's kitchen. [00:05:00] Unlike many people who experienced cannabis, not everybody, but many people. It was a transformative, positive, transformative experience for me.
And all of a sudden my physical pain went away and all that anger that I had as a teenager, involving what am I going to be when I grow up? That also went away because I knew right away I wanted some work with the cannabis plant. The problem was, it was highly legal. Ronald Reagan was president George w the first George Bush was coming in shortly after Reagan.
And these were the biggest anti-drug drug warriors we had ever seen since Harry J Anslinger probably worse than Anslinger. And it was a very dangerous time to be close to the cannabis plant. So you, if you want it to work with cannabis and you did not want to be a criminal, which I did not, you had to be an activist.
And so we started [00:06:00] our activism very early in our careers. We had sort of three tracks to our careers were selling weed underground. We were doing activism and we were trying to. Create legal cannabis businesses. One of the first li the first legal business we had was an industrial hemp company in the 1990s, where we may close out a hemp.
So Steve and I always wanted to get legal. It was very frustrating not to be legal and getting busted a few times, certainly motivated us to change laws and, and get legal because of course that's a very disruptive. So that's how activism happened. I always enjoyed the entrepreneurial aspects of cannabis more than I enjoyed the activism, portions with cannabis.
And so when it became legal in 1996 in California, when we finally after many decades of trying one, a ballot initiative for [00:07:00] medical, then, then all of a sudden this idea of how are we going to. How are we going to do this? How are we going to bring cannabis into the public? How are we going to bring it out into the open?
How are we going to do that in a safe way? How are we going to do that in a way that the community and neighbors, political classes and law enforcement and all these different groups would feel okay about, and in the beginning they didn't feel okay about. So we had a lot of work to do just to operationalize the industry Oakland, cut to the early two thousands and Oakland was the first city to license cannabis.
Dispensary's they didn't license cultivation. They didn't license manufacturing. Growers are still getting rated. Growers were still getting busted. Dispensary's were still getting busted. The feds are having a field day in the early years of the California market and the state of California was not protecting anybody and they were just letting the feds come in and bust people.
So once we got a [00:08:00] license from the city of Oakland Harbor side was one of the first six businesses in the world to get a license, to sell weed. Then Steve and I had another challenge in front of us. And how do we create a model? feel comfortable coming into all walks of life, all parts of the public, senior citizens, veterans, poor people, wealthy people, all colors, all creeds, all religions.
We wanted to create something that everyone felt comfortable and Harvard side was a vision. Was really a community center. We had to operate as a non-for-profit in those days. And so we were able to invest in community and we were able to invest in Madison and we were able to frame cannabis as a wellness product and, and as something that was here to help communities and to help people and this idea of greed and this [00:09:00] idea of exuberance just didn't exist.
California was the only state. There are a bunch of crazy people like me and Steve doing this out there. It didn't seem like anyone else was going to do it. We're just going to let those crazy Californians do this for a while. And it took a number, I don't know, a decade or so before other states came online and then, then things happen very quickly.
As once Colorado and Washington. Particularly when they legalized for adult use and then California shortly thereafter. And then we went into a, not a for-profit model from a nonprofit model, then all kinds of unintended consequences started to happen in our industry with respect to taxes and regulations.
Are the frameworks, right? Or are we doing the public policy as well as we did the activism? How do we prevent. Exuberance and well-financed folks from mainstream industries sort of steamroller. [00:10:00] Over the communities that have been carrying the plant through the darkest days of prohibition. And, and as I mentioned earlier, how do we get these folks out of prison that are still in prison today for doing the same thing that everybody else is doing right now and in the legal industry?
Usually at a much smaller scale. So that's been the, the Genesis of, of my career. I've, I've had to sell weed because I love to sell weed. I've had to be an activist because I didn't want to be a criminal. And I had start trade associations because we had to operationalize our industry within our communities.
And we had to build an industry. And that meant that we had to create connections with other businesses and other entrepreneurs. We had to form alliances. We had to find consensus on how we want it to reform public policy. And I wish I could tell you all of that's gone very well. But unfortunately, whether it's California, almost any other [00:11:00] state, our trade associations are fragmented.
There's too many of them. We've got. Well funded trade associations, trying to build moats around their businesses instead of tearing down the walls for everybody else. Then we've got other folks that are actually trying to tear down the walls. For everybody else, you've got activists, social equity, activist, legacy activists, clamoring, and fighting for a spot at the table.
And we still have federal. Prohibition and just a mess up there in Washington, DC in terms of cannabis policy. So our work is still really just beginning. But the reason I've done all these different things in my career is simply because we we've had to take something out of the shadows and into the light and the only way to do that well, You had no choice, you had to be an activist.
You had to start trade associations. You had to try to find a [00:12:00] center to this that we can collaborate within. And that we can, no matter how hard it is, and it is hard to find consensus together so that we can make the decisions.
Maggie Kelly: You had to build what wasn't there.
Andrew DeAngelo: That's right.
Ross O'Brien: There's nothing more entrepreneurial, right. Seeing an empty field and building a house that nobody else can visualize. Andrew, this is fantastic. And I want to take this as a jump point to, to go into some of the operationalization and bridging gaps. I want to add some context because I'm really excited about all the things that you guys have done.
And, as somebody who had always seen cannabis as non-controversial in my lifetime, it was always something like when I was a kid growing up and exploring and discovering it, myself and my friends were law, abiding citizens in all respects of our lives, with the exception of the use of this plant.
And so it was [00:13:00] one of these things that throughout my life, it's always been, this doesn't make sense that this should be. Prohibited in a way that it is. And therefore, as a lifelong entrepreneur, I'd always felt there's gotta be some opportunity for this to, to change. And, and that was the impetus for, as we refer to the cannabis economy as a, as a macro global trend.
Now, within that, there's all these different verticals. I love what you said about being fragmented. And so there's all these different verticals. As somebody who's been on the front lines of this and what none of us would be here, if it wasn't for the grassroots advocacy of putting things on the ballot and the local communities, and that inspires us to want to bridge those gaps even more and do them successfully.
So can you talk to us and our listeners a little bit more about. Hey those early days. And what has sort of transpired, you talked about unintended consequences. What are the learnings? What are the things that you do the same? What did he do differently and where are we today and how can we all start to calibrate around that same concept?
He called sort of the [00:14:00] center that we're all starting to look at.
Andrew DeAngelo: Well, for me, it all comes down to public policy and the legalization frameworks, if we don't get those right, the domino effects from, from those mistakes are just tremendous. So, and we haven't gotten them. I can't think, I think New York. Legalization frameworks, the best one that I've seen to date.
Ross O'Brien: Why is that under.
Andrew DeAngelo: Well, I think New York, they came around a little bit later and we're able to see the mistakes places like California and Illinois and Massachusetts made and even Oklahoma made and tried really, really hard to learn from those lessons. So the fact that. Half of all the licenses that are going to be issued in New York in theory anyway, are to go to social equity and [00:15:00] those that.
Excuse me, those have, that have been most harmed by the war on weed. Well, no one else has, has done that anywhere in the country. So I think that's a pretty big game changer. I think we have to the devil's in the details on something like that. And we have to make sure that there's integrity and authenticity within that framework and that it gets executed in a good way.
The other thing New York did, or two other things. New York did one. They legalized consumption from day one. So we haven't seen that in any other states. And that's very important because we're seeing in places like public housing and density housing. People don't landlords don't want people smoking weed in there.
The government won't let you smoke weed in public housing. So what good is it? What good is legalization? If you can't smoke a joint in your own apartment, so consumption is important in. [00:16:00] Populated areas in particular like the five boroughs of New York. So I thought, I thought New York did that right too.
And I also think consumption models have a much lower barrier to entry. If we create the rules around them properly, they're also more community and neighborhood centric. And I think this is also going to help bind the ties of the cannabis economy. To the local economies a lot better than it is right now.
And then I think they're talking about an amnesty program in New York where w where amnesty will be provided to anyone like me, who used to be in the underground market and who knows how it's going to flush out yet. There's still a lot of talk about this, but I hope the public policy is done in a good way, in a smart way so that these folks could maybe pay some back taxes, maybe pay some kind of legacy entry fee.[00:17:00]
And then get a license to, to be in the market. And most of the cannabis consumed, particularly in the five boroughs comes from the legacy market, comes from delivery services that have been doing this for decades. They're very well entrenched, Cara leaf and, and truly are not going to dislodge these folks.
The only people that are going to go into. In New York city or are people who don't know how to dial a delivery service. So, so getting these folks in, getting them licensed, allowing the businesses, they already have to compete. I think is, is also a part of the New York framework that I'm very encouraged by.
So I think those are three provisions that we haven't seen before that could really be game changers and could really level the playing field in New York. There's also some other things like [00:18:00] no vertical integration and a limit on the number of. Any number of licenses in any one licensed category? I think all of those things are going to really allow for the people of New York to benefit from statewide legalization in New York, more than say a Canadian public traded company that not many Americans even own stock in.
Certainly not many new Yorkers own stock yet. So I'm bringing it all home. I think that framework. I'm encouraged by that. There's still, devil's in the details and we have a commission now and they're going to be meeting and you know how it goes in New York sometimes. So w w we asked to be vigilant.
We have to keep our eye and we have to keep this out in the open light. And, I'm very proud of the activist in New York. I'm very proud of the media, the [00:19:00] cannabis media, and everybody's really reporting on this in a very transparent way. So. The whole world's watching.
Maggie Kelly: Well, I think this is a great segue to just jump into the last prisoner project. So if you'll listeners Andrew Ross, if you'll allow me to stand up. Box for a moment because we talk about the business and finance of cannabis as it relates to investment in entrepreneurship. That's what we cover on this show primarily, but there's an alternate darker side of the business and finance in cannabis.
And it's such a paradox that. Wealthy individuals sit in a position to monetize the cannabis economy. Whereas those with the lowest incomes are those that are most penalized for cannabis offenses for also being in the cannabis economy, just on the flip side. So the ACLU has excellent data from 2001 to 2010, where you talk about the war on weed, more on weed, more than 88%.
I think of those that were arrested for marijuana just [00:20:00] literally had a little bit on. They were trying to curb drug use from adolescents and the youth. Well arrest skyrocketed con usage remained the same. It did not have the impact that they wanted it to black and whites use marijuana about the same rates.
But if you're black, you're four times thereabout more likely to be arrested for having cannabis and it's much higher and others in specifics. So, as you mentioned today, there are approximately 40,000 who are incarcerated for cannabis offenses. On average, it costs $33,000 a year to incarcerate someone that's about $90 a day.
And you guys can check my math on this because there are much, there's a much better financial expert on this interview, but so that comes out to about $90 a day, which keeping those 40,000 in mine that equates to $3.6 million a day. That it costs to keep [00:21:00] people incarcerated for cannabis-related offenses.
So we talk about the business and finance of cannabis, that 3.6 million a day, that's going into somebody's pocket. Our tax dollars are paying that that's going to somewhere. That is money being made off of the cannabis economy off the backs of those who don't have the resources to fight for the injustice.
So that's the segue. Tell us about the last prisoner project, because your organization aims to resolve this, this inequity.
Andrew DeAngelo: The last prisoner project is a nonprofit 5 0 1 C3. My brothers, Steve and I, and a few other folks started the organization. When I exited Harbor side a little bit before, actually when I exited Harbor side, I, I was sort of burnt out on the transactional parts of, of cannabis because taking a company public takes a year or two, and it's just, [00:22:00] well, it's a brutally complex transaction.
Let's just put it that way. And. No one wins the transaction fully there's people on all sides of the table. And well, I should say the investor bankers usually do quite well because they get paid first, but founders like me get paid less. And in fact, I haven't still haven't gotten paid for all the work I did at Harbor side.
So I was a little burnt out. Chasing the dragon, if you will. And I wanted to do something that made me feel good waking up in the morning, there was still an awful lot of work that needed to be done on the social justice side. As I looked around the industry coming out of my blinders that I had on owning and operating a company for 13 years.
And, one day my brother, Steve was in a boardroom and in Canada and people were talking about [00:23:00] billion dollar deals and he got a phone call from a friend of ours who was locked up in Pennsylvania for weed for four years in jail for 14 pounds a week. And that's when. The idea came to us that we needed to do something.
We took a look around the non-profit landscape and we didn't really see anyone doing this particular, very narrowly focused jobs. So last prisoner project is a very narrowly focused organization. We want to get canvas prisoners home from prison, all of them, every single one of them on earth. It's not a crime anymore.
It never should have been a crime in the first place. None of these people should be allowed. Number two. We want to reenter folks into society once we do get them out. So that often means housing. That often means education that often means often means helping their kids go to a little bit better school.
[00:24:00] Most of these children have been traumatized by their parents being locked up for years and years and years. Some of that means getting them employment and the cannabis industry. Most of the people who work for the last prisoner project now. Our former prisoners that we helped get out. So, and we have ambitions to start a training program, which we don't have funded yet.
It's going to cost a few million dollars, but we'd like to train people that get out of prison to get skills that will enable them to be employed directly into the cannabis. Industry. So that's our sole focus. We, we do work with other groups that do expungement. We don't do expungement ourselves. We don't help people with their appeals.
So we're a post-conviction organization. So we help people with clemency. We help people with commutations we help [00:25:00] people with. Their commissary accounts so that they can be more comfortable while they're, while they're in prison. You mentioned three and a half million a day is what it costs just to house these folks, our entire budget for last prisoners prisoner project is significantly lower than that.
So, the cost of incarcerating cannabis prisoners for one day is more than our yearly. Budget.
Ross O'Brien: And Andrew I'd also say that that cost of incarceration is also inhibiting the value that these people could be providing to the broader communities. If they were out starting their own businesses, running businesses, being involved in organizations like your, so it's not even just the cost, it's almost as if this talent pool is being, governed from.
And I don't mean that in the governmental sense, but as a governor are being held back from actually contributing to the growth of this.
Andrew DeAngelo: Oh, you're absolutely right. And this [00:26:00] age, this day and age, where people are having a hard time hiring people, I can tell you every former prisoner that we've hired at last prisoner project, they're brilliant. People they contribute to our organization. They work their asses off. They have no problem with work ethic at all.
The only thing that they're dealing with is trauma. And sometimes that drama rears its head and we have to show compassion and be there for folks and give them a mental health day or give them a half a day off or whatever it is, so a little flexibility, but these folks have contributed. They have transformed last prisoner project.
We have doubled our, our endowments, since these folks have gotten out of jail and entered. Greatly made our re-entry program more efficacious because the re-entry program is run by people who used to be locked up, so they [00:27:00] understand it better than I ever will be able to. So, and then you hear about, like I just read this article.
80,000 truck drivers want it to be truck drivers and they failed drug tests for cannabis and they can't be drugged dry truck drivers. Now we have this inflation in this country. We have these goods and services that are stuck and we're denying people who want to be truck drivers. To be truck drivers because they can't pass on cannabis piss test.
We, it's. So across the board, how we have to, we have to free this cannabis talent, not just prisoners, but.
Ross O'Brien: So, so Andrew one of our guiding principles as a firm and we adhere to what the companies that we invest in one of our guiding principles is the belief that entrepreneurship should be accessible to everyone in every country. So, Andrew, because of the. Philosophy that we have as a firm and just being inspired by listening to you here [00:28:00] today, I'd like to make a public offer for us to be a participant contributor donor to the last prisoner project. Now, what I'm thinking that we'd love to do is we've, we're investing now out of our second fund.
I'd love to set aside some donations directly to last prisoner project. And we'd love to. As involved as, as you'd like. And I'm also thinking, given that Maggie and I have a pretty strong background in education, that's how we met. The book that I wrote was largely intended to be a textbook when I first started writing it if you're open to it and the last prisoner project would like to partner with us, we'd love to launch a training program for these individuals and help take them through virtual webinars, et cetera, at no cost to them at no cost to you.
And ultimately. I could see this leading to, internship programs and pathways for these people to come either, join our firm, be interns with us, or join the companies that we invest in. So, Andrew, I hope this isn't coming out of the blue, but this is something we'd really love to be a part of.
Andrew DeAngelo: No, not at [00:29:00] all Ross, this is not coming out of the blue. This is exactly why I do programs like this. And talk about last prisoner project is to inspire folks to step up like that. We would absolutely love to work with your firm on all those initiatives. It's easy for us to take donations, of course, but, but the other stuff you mentioned, the internship and the books and the training, that those, we almost, we welcome as much, if not more than doing donations, simply because.
It's going to take a village to get this done. And sometimes if a firm like yours can do 10, 20, 30, 40 people and then, a hundred other firms hear about that, they feel left out and they want to do 20, 30, 40 people. All of a sudden we've got thousands of people and that that's how this gets done.
So, so, you can reach out to me.
Ross O'Brien: Yeah, well,
Andrew DeAngelo: get your hookup and anybody else listening. We have programs already [00:30:00] established to help folks plug into this. So if you're a cannabis company and you make stuff, we have a program for you to, to help with the revenue, from the stuff you may, if you're a dispensary, we have a program, you don't, it doesn't even cost you anything.
It's just the change that people get. It goes into a bucket and we get that too. And with firms like yours, investment firms and education firms, , we will sometimes develop custom programs. So it's, it's, our partners are the driver of our budgets and our programming. So I'm absolutely thrilled to hear you say that.
And let's rock and roll.
Ross O'Brien: I love it, Andrew, or we'd be thrilled to be a part of this. And I think it's a perfect segue into, I think where we want to wrap up today is look, we talk a lot about our strategy has always been, go slow to go fast. You spoke earlier about some of the irrational exuberance and as investors. We were very cautious coming into the space, but the conversation that we just [00:31:00] had Andrew, and I hope that I'm sure it's not lost on our listeners, but let's, let's really put a finer points on this.
We're we're showing the, that, which I think you are uniquely positioned to do out of a lot of people that we interact with really bridge those two worlds or three worlds or ma here we are having a conversation on a couple sides of an equation that sometimes have fragmented objectives or different views, and we're coming together.
With a common good. So I'd love for you to talk more about how you've been able to play that role, how you see the fidelity in the conversation coming together between these different factions within the cannabis economy and where this can be beneficial to everybody going forward.
Andrew DeAngelo: thank you for asking that. Yeah. I want to build bridges between legacy folks, black and brown folks. And. And investors and mainstream business people. I think that we have a lot to offer each other. We don't trust each other right now. So, so we have to build some, some trust [00:32:00] to together, especially a few years ago, I think it's gotten a little better now, but a few years ago, when I talked to mainstream business people.
The last thing they wanted in their organization was a cannabis person. They really thought that the cannabis people were a detriment to their business. They want it to get them out of the way and get me my mainstream people in here. And we'll show , how to do this right now to scale this thing up and, and make it happen.
And most of those companies face. And are either leading money and taking more money from investors as we're seeing in the public markets in Canada, or they've outright failed or they've consolidated with others. There are a few success stories but most of those come from businesses that have been very smart, placing their companies in limited licensing frameworks and essentially using that through.
Moat around their business. And so they don't compete with anybody. So I, I want to build [00:33:00] bridges. So I think that, I think someone like me can be very beneficial in a C-suite of a bigger companies, or even with investors. I think people that have been working with this plant for a long time and understand the consumer and understand the culture and understand quality cannabis can be enormously beneficial to folks that don't know about those things.
And. We also have a unique opportunity. I was really disheartened when I saw the MJ biz report on minority ownership and participation in the cannabis industry. The latest report was terrible. Our industry is not even performing as good as mainstream companies in this country and mainstream companies in this country.
So we suck even worse when it comes to diversity, female ownership, LGBTQ ownership, black and brown ownership, even legacy people like me. Obviously because of the color of my [00:34:00] skin, I have a little more advantages than some folks in my community, but I still have a very big uphill climb as a legacy cannabis person to.
Achieve the kind of things that I would like to achieve. So I think we have to start having these conversations and, and, and, I had one at the MJ biz conference. I hosted a panel on this topic. I hope we'll have more panels. I'll hope we have more conversations. I hope more people can share the stage together that are from these two different communities.
I hope we can brainstorm and think of ways that we. Build bridges together and help each other. I don't think the stoner should be afraid to compete with the suits. And I don't think the suits should be afraid to compete with the stoners. What if we had an industry where you had small, medium and large players where you had diversity that.
Much better than the media of [00:35:00] the mainstream corporate businesses. What if we had a higher sustainability and ESG score than any other industry on earth? Wouldn't that be something all of us could be really proud of.
Ross O'Brien: let me add to tie a bow on this from, I'll play this. More of my background in this area. In our first fund, Andrew, we have nine companies in there out of the nine companies. We have five female founders. We have four African-American founders. We have one Asian American founder, and I want to tell you Andrew for us.
And I want everybody out there listening to this as an investor. The, the money doesn't matter what your background is or what your culture is or what, it's a smart decision. When you have broader diversity in opportunities and founders to back, I come from a lot of experience in healthcare. The founders I'm seeing today are so much more diverse and [00:36:00] bringing new perspectives and new innovations and just don't look anything like the slew of founders that I had worked with for, 15 years previously through healthcare for us as investors.
That is a transformative opportunity to be successful together. So I want everybody to hear that, cause this is a great example of the bridges you're talking about creating it is only smart to be investing in diversity.
Andrew DeAngelo: I'm so glad you told me that. Cause I didn't know that about your organization and you are pioneering something that should be celebrated. So I hope you have a good PR firm. I know you have a great podcast and your stories should be told. Loudly and widely and should be used as an example, you should have, the main stage at MJ biz next year.
And
Ross O'Brien: Let's do it together. Andrew, we'd love to.
Andrew DeAngelo: yeah, good. Let's do it because I, I want to continue this conversation for the next several years. I'm so proud to hear that [00:37:00] there are firms like you that are making these investments. They're not without risk. And, I think at the end of the day, We're building this industry from nothing.
It's a unique industry. It's not like tech or automobiles or something that came along from scratch that didn't have this history of oppression and imprisonment and injustice. So it's unique. And in order to balance the scales of justice, people are going to have to lose some money.
Ross O'Brien: here's the, the news slash Andrew. And, and I wanna to, I love it because I think we need to have around two with you. So we're gonna, we're running out a little bit of time, but listen, I will say this, the failure rate of start-up companies in healthcare and medical device companies is no different.
If not greater than the failure rate of startup companies and cannabis, your point on let's go out there and let's go try to build something. And it won't be without taking our lumps that's table stakes for any new innovation. Proud to have you [00:38:00] on today, Andrew. We can talk for hours and there's conversations to follow up.
We'd love to do around too. Maggie did did, did we miss anything or is there anything you'd like to cover? Because I think that's a great place to, to give our listeners a lot to think about, and obviously we'll have all the links in the show notes, et cetera.
Maggie Kelly: Yeah, I think we're at a great place. And I think honestly, we just really scratched the surface.
Andrew DeAngelo: Well, I'd love to come back has been a real thrill to be with you all today. I'm so glad I got to meet you. Keep up the good work and let me know how I can champion your efforts.
Maggie Kelly: Thank you very much, many thanks to Andrew de Angelo for joining us today. It was an absolute delight for both Ross and I details covered in this episode can be found in the show notes. To learn more about Andrew, please visit Andrew de angelo.com. To learn more about the last prisoner project, please visit.
Last prisoner project.org. And remember if you have a challenge for our cannabis economy challenge, please visit cannabis capital podcast.com. [00:39:00] We'll see you next week with a new episode of cannabis, capital the podcast.