Michigan Report: Cannabis Education Program Promotes Social-Equity, Nurses Receive Grant

A local marijuana business in Grand Rapids is seeking to help create equity in the cannabis industry, and one of the best to achieve that is by providing educational tools. The program is being offered by Michigan's Fluresh, a  vertically integrated medical & adult use cannabis company. 

Fluresh's Cannabis Entrepreneurship Program, whose goal is to create “a more just and inclusive industry,” recently announced that it will give five applicants the chance to learn about how to enter and be a member of the marijuana market.

“What you find in the cannabis industry, is this push for a social equity policy,” Fluresh’s general counsel and chief regulatory counsel Shoran Reid Williams told a local news outlet. The Grand Rapids-based weed company wants to give residents “a behind-the-scenes look at the industry with hands-on experience.”

While the program will focus on cannabis, her main hope is to inspire change in the community. “I don’t care if anyone from 49507 (Grand Rapids zip code) decides to be in the cannabis industry,” Reid Williams said. “I care much more about making 49507, and communities like it, having better parks, creating avenues for people in those communities to have ways out of that condition, out of those circumstances.”

New Employment Opportunities

“The Fluresh Cannabis Entrepreneur Program helped me on my cannabis entrepreneurial journey,” said Jessica Austin, who completed the program in 2021.

"The key sessions helped me identify how I can thrive in the cannabis industry through networking and educational opportunities. The connections I’ve made and the things I’ve learned about the cannabis industry started here,” added Austin, who is now the owner of Creative Carvings, which makes fruit bowls and arrangements in Grand Rapids.

Applications for the program will be accepted until December and applicants will be notified of their selection by December 9, according to the website.

Seeking To Reduce Marijuana Stigma In Detroit

Gage Cannabis, a subsidiary of TerrAscend Corp.  TRSSF announced its fourth social equity grant recipient, Midwest CannaNurses (MCN), a Detroit education consulting business that seeks to spread more understanding about the benefits of cannabis and how to use it safely and for wellness. 

Ebony Smith and Biyyiah Lee, two cannabis educator nurses, founded MCN in 2020 after fielding questions about cannabis in the communities they served, “but not seeing healthcare providers at the table to provide information,” Lee said, according to Axion Detroit News.

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Photo: Courtesy Of Margo Amala On Unsplash