Black NY Cannabis Farmers Wrestle With History, Look Toward Future as State Undergoes Legalization: "So Much Emotion, Joy and Grief"

 Jasmine Burems and King Aswad left city life in Brooklyn behind to start an organic, biodynamic farm in Copake, New York in 2015, but, in some ways, their journey is generations in the making.

“As a sixth generation new yorker, where my great great grandfather was one of the builders for the Holland Tunnel, my great grandfather was a foreman for one of the World Trade towers, took the money from that gig and retired and bought hundred acres upstate near Cooperstown,” said Aswad while standing in a field of cannabis plants — one of the first crops of legal adult-use cannabis in New York State. “It was food sovereignty happening in my life before that was even a saying.”

Aswad, a former yoga instructor and actor, and Burems, who was working as a doula and community herbalist, left Bed-Stuy with their baby in 2015 to start Claudine Field Apothecary.

“We met at a yoga studio in Bed Stuy and came up here to start our family farm in hopes of scaling our ideals and wellness practices onto the land, and to be in this journey of learning regenerative land management and sustainable stewardship together,” said Burems.

Aswad (left) and Burems (center) explain the cultivation process to press and state officials at Claudine Field Apothecary in Copake. Photo credit Curtis Brodner

When they first started pursuing their dream, the couple didn’t even have a driver's license between them.

They’d cycle with their baby strapped to the back of one of their bikes to the Williamsburg ferry, take the Metro North upstate and then bike three hours to view the land they were planning on buying — an uphill-both-ways story for the ages sure to humble future generations.

“When we started on that journey, with no driver’s licenses and no equipment, to become farmers from New York City,” said Burems. “We literally had a pickaxe and a heavy rake and a thick cord, and we’d post one stick here and run the cord, post it there and that’s how we’d get our straight rows to plant by hand into the land.”

Now, CFA is one of the first farms in the state permitted to grow adult-use cannabis.

Cannabis almost ready to harvest at Claudine Field Apothecary Photo credit Curtis Brodner

The independent farm started cultivating hemp in 2018. This year, they’re growing 15,000 square feet of cannabis — 13 strains across 1,650 plants.

Aswad and Burems are expecting about a pound per plant this year, but hope as they experiment moving forward to reach three- to six-pound yields.

They started hand planting this year’s crop in July, and started harvesting the fruits of their labor in October. They hope to have all of their marijuana off the plants and curing by Halloween.

The farm is named after Aswad’s grandmother, who he credits with instilling in him the love of nature and work ethic that makes him a successful farmer.

“She was the one that made me spend all the hours that I put in as a child outside, pulling weeds and removing rocks on the property so we could run the machines without breaking them,” he said. “Raking, learning how to use a tractor, a walk-behind tractor, harvesting different vegetables, growing and harvesting vegetables over the year. She’s just the matriarch of my family.”

She passed away just as Aswad and Burems were looking to follow in Aswad’s grandfather’s footsteps by moving upstate and starting a farm.

“This is me coming back to her,” he said.

Photo credit Curtis Brodner

“These are the type of farmers — with roots in New York, who are committed to the art of sustainable agriculture, of Black farming, of education and community that we want to encourage in our legal cannabis supply chain,” said Damian Fagon, chief equity officer at the New York State Office of Cannabis Management. “We want to see a hundred farms just like this.”

Aswad said he feels the weight of the history of the War on Drugs working as a Black farmer cultivating cannabis.

“It feels like a huge responsibility, but it also feels like a humongous honor to have the opportunity to do this out in the open,” said Aswad. “I can’t imagine me living in fear that somebody might try to take my family apart because of me doing this, because I’m trying to make a living for my family.”

Burems too feels the revolutions of the wheel of history under her feet as she works.

“I have so much emotion — joy and grief. Because I think about the over 800,000 people who were incarcerated in New York State for possessing small amounts of cannabis,” she said. “It’s like, I wouldn’t say bitter sweet, but it’s almost like compost, how it creates more fertile soil but it’s rancid, and it’s decrepit, and it’s funky. It’s not pretty for that process to happen, that conversion. I think about my community, especially African Americans from urban environments who were in pain for many many years for their relationship to this medicinal herb.”

New York State led one of the most brutal campaigns against non-violent drug offenders in the country in the wake of President Richard Nixon’s declaration of war on drugs in 1971. New York Gov. Nelson Rockafeller, a close ally of Nixon’s, signed the Rockefeller Drug Laws in 1973.

Until the laws were changed in 2009, New York locked up hundreds of thousands of mostly Black and Latino people for non-violent drug offenses.

“Although whites use marijuana at least as often as blacks, the per capita arrest rate of blacks for marijuana offenses between 1976 and 2006 was nearly eight times that of whites,” wrote the NYCLU in 2008 while campaigning to end the Rockefeller Drug Laws. “During this period there were 362,000 marijuana possession arrests in New York City. Fifty-four percent of those arrested were black and 30 percent were Latino; only 14 percent of the arrestees were white.”

New York State took its brutal history into account while drafting its cannabis legalization laws and is currently in the process of implementing the most ambitious cannabis legalization equity plan in the country.

Conditional Adult-Use Retail Dispensary Licenses, the license dispensaries need to legally sell cannabis, are first being distributed to people who were convicted of a marijuana offense under prohibition and their family members.

The state is also aiming for half of all cultivator licenses to be distributed to so-called “equity applicants.” That means service disabled veterans, minority and women-owned businesses, those who have been directly impacted by prohibition and distressed farmers.

“We want to make sure that we’re continuing to prioritize those who have been impacted by prohibition as we move beyond,” said OCM Executive Director Chris Alexander. “Those who have been most impacted need to have an opportunity to participate. Here we’re seeing the Seeding Opportunity Initiative [the state’s equity program] really manifest itself.”

“I’m grateful for Colorado and California, Michigan, Midwest, down south, I’m grateful for all that they have endured, but I am also proud and inspired and motivated at the opportunity that the legislation is giving us here in this state to do something different than has happened in all of the other states,” said King. “When we say social equity, to really let that mean something and not just be a catchphrase, but also to be a justified system, a justified chain throughout. So that when cannabis is federally legal, that’s when New York gets to do what we do, and step to the front of the line, and step to the top of the market on this planet and bring our terroir to the rest of the world, in a legal way.”

To that end, Burems and Aswad started the Institute of Afrofuturist Ecology, a land-based education non-profit that aims to open the door for more Black farmers and teach children to love the outdoors.

The youth programming is focused on survival skills and nature education, though Burems admits they tend to steer clear of the cannabis part of their business for the kids.

“Our commitment is to give youth who don’t have that access, access to land and to space and to see things they don’t usually see,” she said.

The adult programming aims to teach people regenerative farming techniques in the hopes that they can start their own ecologically sound, independent farms.

The AFI founders say they want to foster a more diverse generation of conservationists.

“Part of that work that we're doing with this non-profit organization is to create access to land for others who came from the inner cities just like we did to get out here and to feel like they belong,” said Aswad. “I come from a legacy of people stolen from land and brought to stolen land. There’s some healing that needs to happen. There is trauma that I carry with me from cash crops in America, from the history of agriculture, from slavery, from the imbalance in the system. We are a new people now. We are a new tribe. Let’s do something new.”

Burems and Aswad hope that, if done right, the cannabis industry in New York can empower the communities that have been historically cheated out of this country’s riches.

“I want to encourage everyone to support New York agriculture, bring that New York pride to the dispensaries,” said King. “Don’t go to the brands that are growing out of state when they bring their stuff here. Keep that money here in New York State so we can build our economy, because when it does go global… there’s something we should be able to do with that. I want to see the neighborhood that I grew up in change, because the economy is changing. And I think that the cannabis industry is definitely the opportunity to do that.”

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