Ben Cohen, of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream, launched a nonprofit cannabis brand (Picture: B3)
Ben Cohen, one of the eponymous co-founders of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream, has launched a nonprofit cannabis company dedicated to ‘righting the wrongs of the war on drugs.’
Cohen announced the launch of Ben’s Best Blnz, also known as B3, earlier this year.
The company is set up to collect royalties on B3 formulas, packaging, trademarks, and marketing materials to for-profit companies, then donate 100% of its profits to social justice causes.
‘The War on Drugs (first so named by President Richard Nixon) has targeted lower income black and brown people thru over policing, discriminatory prosecution, and discriminatory sentencing,’ the company said. ‘That’s why despite using pot at the same rate, black people are 4 times more likely to be arrested than whites.’
Ben Cohen originally launched Ben & Jerry’s with his business partner, Jerry Greenfield, in 1978 (Picture: AP)
Ben’s Best said 80% of its profits will be reinvested into black-owned businesses. According to the company, only 4% of cannabis businesses in the United States are owned by black people.
Those funds will be managed by the NuLeaf Foundation, an Oregon nonprofit that currently uses funds from that state’s cannabis tax to offer grants and loans to black and brown businesses.
Another 10% will go to the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance, and the last 10% will go to the Last Prisoner Project, an organization dedicated to freeing people convicted of marijuana-related crimes that are still incarcerated.
B3 is also dedicated to advocating for expunging the criminal records of people convicted of drug crimes and descheduling marijuana at the federal level.
In addition to their social justice focus, the B3 brand also plans to ‘sell great pot’ (Picture: B3)
The company’s board of trustees includes a number of black activist figures, including former Ohio state senator Nina Turner, as well as Mike Render, better known as rapper Killer Mike of the hip-hop duo Run the Jewels.
But B3 also says it will focus on ‘selling great pot,’ in the form of pre-rolled joints, resin vapes, some of which are lower in THC than most other cannabis products currently on the market.
Cohen told High Times magazine that he started the company ‘because for me and lots of other people today’s pot is just way too strong.’
He continued: ‘I’m an entrepreneur and saw an opportunity for a business to fill that void in the market. But I’m lucky enough not to need more money, so I decided to incorporate as a non-profit organization whose purpose is to help right the wrongs of the War on Drugs.’
Customers can find dispensaries carrying B3 products using a search function on the company’s website.
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The new company said 80% of its profits will be reinvested into black-owned businesses.