a&e features
‘Trump Survival Guide’ author on what to do now
From energy, education, LGBT issues and more, new book is road map for progressives
President-elect Donald Trump (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
Feeling helpless in the impending Trump administration? Author Gene Stone is here to help with his new book “The Trump Survival Guide.”
The new book, out Jan. 10 from Dey Street Books (a HarperCollins imprint), is a trade paperback priced at $9.99 that’s subtitled “Everything You Need to Know About Living Through What You Hoped Would Never Happen.”
Bereft for about eight days after the Nov. 8 election, Stone, a New York Times bestselling author with 40 eclectic titles of several genres to his credit, says he couldn’t bear to watch or read the news. “Survival Guide” was written over the next 12 days (“I’ve had magazine deadlines that were much longer,” he says) with the help of seven co-writers.
Its chapters are devoted to topics like civil rights, the economy, education, energy, national security, LGBT issues and more. It’s billed as a “serious call to action for all anti-Trump dissenters across the political spectrum” that “succinctly analyzes crucial social and political policies, explains how Donald J. Trump has the power to undermine them and provides concrete practical solutions ordinary people can use to fight back.”
Stone spoke to the Blade by phone from his office in New York City. His comments have been slightly edited for length.
Author Gene Stone has written 12 books that have made the New York Times Bestseller list. Five hit No. 1. (Photo courtesy Dey Street Books)
WASHINGTON BLADE: How did you channel your election funk into this project so quickly?
GENE STONE: After about a week of feeling sorry for everything, I decided, you know — and this is the point of the book — it’s one thing to be depressed and mopey and God knows I have friends who are still crying, but you have to do something. Being depressed doesn’t get you anywhere. Being dejected and crying doesn’t solve anything. … Sitting around doing nothing accomplishes nothing. I thought, “Well, I have to do something.” I’m not the deepest thinker in the world, but I’m certainly one of the fastest and I realized I could do this. I knew that I could turn this book around in a short period of time. I have a pretty solid publishing history so I knew I had the credibility to get a book contract for something like this. They knew I was dependable, that I’d done it before and could do it again. All that meant that I should do the book, I could do the book so therefore I felt I had to do the book.
BLADE: How unusual is this tight of a turnaround time in the book publishing world?
STONE: There was a time years ago when instant books were much more common. Bantam Books was famous for being able to turn around books in a couple of weeks. … It has actually gotten much less common because the way those books were often sold was through the bookstores that would support the book, put it on their counters and make people aware of it that way, but as bookstores have less and less market share, it’s actually harder to get something like this out now. A book like this on a counter priced at $10 is a very appealing prospect that doesn’t quite have the same appeal on Amazon …. so it’s become less and less common.
BLADE: Obviously all the chapters were important to you but did the LGBT chapter have any special significance being gay yourself?
STONE: I can’t really say any were less important than the others but when it came time to do the book — I had some friends help me; I couldn’t do it all myself, so I hired a few friends to help write, research and fact check, etc. — but I needed right away to come up with a template for each chapter and the LGBT chapter was the one I wrote first myself the night I got the book contract staying up till God knows when in the morning in order to get the template done because frankly, it was a chapter I knew really well. … That established the pattern for the rest of the book.
BLADE: When you mention the agencies readers may want to support at the end of that chapter, you mention GLAAD, GLSEN, Lambda Legal and others but only sort of mention the Human Rights Campaign, the largest, under “and don’t forget …” Why?
STONE: (pauses) As you can tell, I have some issues there.
BLADE: You also wrote “The Bush Survival Bible.” Did his presidency end up being better or worse than you expected at the outset?
STONE: Well, they’re in fact much different books. The Bush book was actually kind of a funny book. A mix of satire and jokes and some serious advice, but in the guise of a funny book. When Bush won, I was also depressed, unhappy, I didn’t like it, but at least Bush was in the ballpark. I didn’t agree with it, but there was no sense that the world was going to be turned upside down. The Trump book is not a funny book, it’s a serious book because I do have a strong sense that there’s a possibility that the world could be turned upside down and there’s nothing funny about that.
BLADE: Are there any lessons we can glean from the Bush years as a sign of things to come or is it not analogous enough to justify that sort of thinking?
STONE: Well, again, even with that Republican administration, even though we disagreed with so many of their policies, it felt nonetheless that there was some kind of dialogue available between the right and the left …. but I’m not getting that feeling with the Trump administration. Obviously it hasn’t started yet, but in looking at his cabinet picks and watching his first press conference, I’m not getting the sense that things are going to seem as normal as they seemed during the Bush administration so it’s almost like you look back and think, “Gee, could it ever be worse?” and now you realize, “Oh man, it is worse. It’s much worse.” So I’m not sure the lessons we learned in the Bush years really apply because we’re dealing with an entirely new creature and I don’t think he is going to abide by the rules. Previously there’s been a norm in politics and civil discussion that both sides, with a bit of a stretch, have maintained. We’re not seeing that now and that’s one of the things that worries me most.
BLADE: Does Trump’s impulsiveness and reactionary personality lessen the value we would ordinarily perhaps glean from all the endless prognostication and tealeaf reading we see at the outset of any administration?
STONE: Two months ago, I probably would have said yeah, but now we have been seeing a fairly consistent pattern so I’m beginning to think the mixed signals from Trump are a thing of the past. What we’re seeing now is a pretty consistent formula of appealing to the alt right or right policies. We haven’t seen anything to the left or even the center so it’s been pretty consistent. It feels like the inconsistency of the past is melting into this kind of dreary consistency.
BLADE: Ideology aside, is that a good sign or do you still feel he could go off on some crazy limb at any point?
STONE: Yeah, the latter. Obviously we don’t know what’s going to happen till it happens, but all the signals so far have been pretty negative if not very negative.
BLADE: What do you think was the biggest factor in Hillary’s loss?
STONE: That’s something we always want to do in the media, and I’m as much to blame as anybody else, but we want to talk about the thing, the one thing, that made this happen but I would say it was really a combination of the Comey letter, perhaps faulty campaigning on her part, the country wanting change and any number of other factors. I really think it was the imperfect storm of factors and remember — she did win the popular vote. … It was very close. He’s also coming in with the lowest favorability ratings since polling began.
BLADE: By design, this book will have a short shelf life. Are you OK with that?
STONE: That’s just the nature of a book like this — nobody will be reading this in two years. I write a lot of books. I co-wrote a book on how not to die based on plant-based diets and it’s sort of an antidote to the major causes of death in America and I like to think that book will be around for many, many years to come. … I’d be very happy if all the sales of this book took place in the next six months. For the lessons here to be applied, people need to read the book now.
BLADE: There are a lot of things one could point to — eight years of Obama, the Obergefell ruling, the outcry from the Trayvon Martin case and so on, that made it feel like we’d really turned a corner on the straight, white, old boys’ club in politics then bam, in one fell swoop the old boys’ club came roaring back to win the White House and both chambers of Congress. Is it just that entrenched or something else?
STONE: It does speak to entrenchment yes, but it also points to another factor that’s been prevalent in American politics since the beginning, its back and forth nature. Carter to Reagan, Bush to Clinton, Clinton to Bush, Bush to Obama — it’s been a lot of back and forth. And also the fact that they barely made it in this time makes me hopeful. I mean here we had a centrist, liberal woman running with very, very negative favorability ratings and yet she came really close to winning. I also like to think that unless the damage Trump does to our democracy is really overwhelming, that the pendulum will eventually swing back again.
BLADE: Did progressives get too complacent? If this shakes us from our complacency, is that the silver lining?
STONE: I agree with that. I think liberals have a tendency to think that we’re right. We know what’s right, we’re kind and decent and empowering. That’s the way humans are supposed to be but unfortunately, that’s not the way all humans are. We did get very complacent having a terrific president for eight years and this is going to shock us out of our complacency and hopefully make us work in a way we saw the Tea Party work. As much as I don’t agree with anything they stood for, I admire the way they got their objectives into the policies of America and we need to do the same. If my book is really about anything, it’s about fighting back and finding ways to take on the Trump administration, not by waiting four years to vote against it, but by turning every day of your life into some kind of act of resistance. If there’s anything that’s going to make me happy, and I’ve heard it a few times already, it will be to hear people say, “I read your book and I joined an organization or I donated money or now I’m going to go march in the women’s protest. The point of the book is to try to get people to move.
BLADE: But how much can really be accomplished in this environment. How was the Tea Party able to become such a force while, say, the Occupy movement seemed like it had difficulty sustaining itself or harnessing that energy into something with any measurable impact? Is the right just better at mobilizing than the left? How can you be effective when you’re not the group in power at any given moment?
STONE: Well, I think one of the things that motivated the Tea party is that it didn’t have a titular head. You couldn’t say so-and-so ran everything because it was such a grass roots thing taking place in so many parts of the country. We need to learn from that. You don’t need a powerful leader. You don’t need a spokesperson. Every one of us can be a spokesperson just as everybody in the Tea Party felt they could go to the media and say whatever they wanted, we can do the same. … I also think politics tend to trickle up from the local level and we just don’t seem to get that. We get all excited about presidents and senators but it starts with local representatives and school boards. We just don’t seem to organize on the local level the way the Tea Party can do.
(Image courtesy Dey Street Books)
a&e features
Pride season has begun
LGBTQ parades, festivals to be held throughout region in coming months
LGBTQ Pride festivals, parades and other events have been scheduled in large cities and small towns throughout the region. Pride events around the world culminate in June, but organizers in some municipalities have elected to hold celebrations in other months.
Pride in the region has already begun with last weekend’s Mr., Miss, and Mx. Capital Pride Pageant held at Penn Social as well as Roanoke Pride Festival held in Elmwood Park in Roanoke, Va.
Below is a list of Pride events coming to the region.
MAY
Capital Trans Pride is scheduled for 9:30 a.m.-5 p.m. on Saturday, May 18 at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library (901 G St., N.W.). The website for the event advertises workshops, panel discussions, a keynote address, a resource fair and more. transpridewashingtondc.org
Equality Prince William Pride is scheduled for 12-4 p.m. on May 18 at the Harris Pavilion (9201 Center St.) in historic downtown Manassas, Va. equalityprincewilliam.org
D.C. Black Pride holds events throughout the city May 24-27. Highlights include an opening reception, dance parties and a community festival at Fort Dupont Park. The Westin Washington, DC Downtown (999 9th St., N.W.) is the host hotel, with several events scheduled there. dcblackpride.org
NOVA Pride and Safe Space NOVA will hold NOVA Pride Prom from 7-11 p.m. on May 31 at Torpedo Factory Art Center in Alexandria, Va. The event is open to all high school students throughout the region, regardless of identity, from rising ninth grade students to graduating seniors. novapride.org
Capital Pride Honors will be held on May 31. The Capital Pride Alliance has announced on its website that nominations are open for awardees. The Honors celebrates excellence in the LGBTQ community and its allies. capitalpride.org
JUNE
Downtown Sykesville Connection is sponsoring Sykesville Pride Day in downtown Sykesville, Md. on June 1 from 12-4 p.m. downtownsykesville.com
Reston Pride will be held at Lake Anne Plaza in Reston, Va. on June 1 from 12-6 p.m. restonpride.org
Fairfax Pride, hosted by the City of Fairfax and George Mason University, will be held at Old Town Hall (3999 University Drive, Fairfax, Va.) on June 1 from 5-7 p.m. The event will include children’s activities and more. fairfaxva.gov
OEC Pride celebrates Pride with “art, dance, education, and fun” in Old Ellicott City. The OEC Pride Festival is held along Main Street in Ellicott City, Md. on June 1 from 10 a.m.-10 p.m. visitoldellicottcity.com
Annapolis Pride has consistently drawn a giant crowd for a parade and festival in the quaint downtown of the Maryland capital. “The Voice” star L. Rodgers has been announced to headline the 2024 festival. The parade and festival will be held on June 1. annapolispride.org
The Alexandria LGBTQ+ Task Force Alexandria Pride is scheduled to be held at Alexandria City Hall from 3 – 6 p.m. on June 1 in Alexandria, Va. alexandriava.gov
The Portsmouth Pride Fest will be held at Festival Park adjacent to the Atlantic-Union Bank Pavilion in Portsmouth, Va. on June 1 from 11 a.m.-5 p.m. portsmouthprideva.com
The Delaware Pride Festival is a free event scheduled for June 1 at Legislative Hall in Dover, Del. from 10 a.m.-5 p.m.The event is billed as family friendly and open to people of all ages and sexual orientations. delawarepride.org
The City of Rockville is hosting Rockville Pride at Rockville Town Square (131 Gibbs St., Rockville, Md.) from 2-5 p.m. on June 2. The free event features live performances, information booths, and children’s activities. rockvillemd.gov
Equality Loudoun is hosting the ticketed Loudoun Pride Festival from 1-7 p.m. on June 2 at Claude Moore Park in Sterling, Va. The event features three stages, a “#Dragstravaganza,” a kid’s zone, an alcohol pavilion, a food hall and more. Tickets $5. eqloco.com
Culpepper Pride is slated to be held at Mountain Run Winery in Culpepper, Va. from 12-6 p.m. on June 2. The theme this year is “True Colors.” culpeperpride.org
The Southwest Virginia Pride Cookout Community Social is planned for 2 p.m. at the Charles R. Hill Senior Center in Vinton, Va. on June 2. For more information, visit the Facebook event page.
Capital Pride kicks off with the RIOT! Opening Party at Echostage starting at 9 p.m. on June 7. Tickets run from $27-$50 and can be purchased on the Capital Pride website. The event is set to feature Sapphire Cristál. capitalpride.org
Pride events continue over the weekend of June 8-9 in the nation’s capital with the Capital Pride Block Party featuring performers and a beverage garden, the massive Capital Pride Parade, Flashback: A totally Radical Tea Dance to be held at the end of the parade route, and the Capital Pride Festival and Concert. Visit capitalpride.org for more information. Other Pride events planned for the weekend in D.C. include a number of parties and the unforgettable (and free) Pride on the Pier & Fireworks Show at the Wharf sponsored by the Washington Blade from 2-10 p.m. prideonthepierdc.com
Pride in the ‘Peake will be held at Summit Pointe (580 Belaire Ave.) in Chesapeake, Va. on June 9 from 12-5 p.m. The family-focused Pride event does not serve alcohol, but will feature community organizations, food trucks and more in a street festival. For more information, visit the Facebook event page.
Celebrate with a drag show, dancing and a lot of wine at Two Twisted Posts Winery in Purcellville, Va. for a Pride Party from 2-5 p.m. on June 15. twotwistedposts.com
Baltimore Pride holds one of the largest Pride parades in the region on June 15 in Baltimore. (2418 Saint Paul St.). The parade concludes with a block party and festival. Pride events are scheduled from June 14-16. baltimorepride.org
The fourth annual Catonsville Pride Fest will be held at the Catonsville Presbyterian Church (1400 Frederick Rd.) in Catonsville, Md. on June 15 from 3-6 p.m. The event features a High Heel Race, pony rides, face painting, local cuisine and more. For more information, visit the Facebook event page.
The Ghent Business District Palace Shops have announced a Ghent Pride event from 5:30-9:30 p.m. on June 17 at the Palace Shops and Station (301 W 21st Street) in Norfolk, Va. ghentnorfolk.org
An event dedicated to celebrating the elders in the LGBTQ community, Silver Pride is scheduled for June 20 at 5:30-8:30 p.m. Location and more information to be announced soon. capitalpride.org
Visit the Hampton Roads PrideFest and Boat Parade for a truly unique Pride experience along the Elizabeth River. The full day of entertainment, education and celebration will be held on June 22 from 12-7 p.m. at Town Point Park (113 Waterside Dr.) in Norfolk, Va. hamptonroadspride.org
Frederick, Md. will hold its annual Frederick Pride Festival at Carroll Creek Linear Park on June 22 from 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Entertainers include CoCo Montrese of “RuPaul’s Drag Race.” frederickpride.org
The fourth annual Pride at the Beach is scheduled for 2-10 p.m. on June 23 at Neptune’s Park (3001 Atlantic Ave.) in Virginia Beach, Va. The event features entertainment, community vendors, beachside DJ sets, food trucks and offers a “perfect conclusion to an unforgettable Pride weekend.” hamptonroadspride.org
Winchester Pride will hold its Mx. Winchester Pride Pageant at 15 N. Loudoun St. in Winchester, Va. on June 23 at 6 p.m. Tickets are $20 in advance/$25 at the door. winchesterpride.com
The organizers of last year’s inaugural Ocean City Pride with a “parade” along the boardwalk in Ocean City, Md. have announced that they will be organizing a return this year with events from June 28-30. instagram.com
The third annual Arlington Pride Festival will be held at Long Bridge Park at National Landing (475 Long Bridge Dr.) in Arlington, Va. on June 29 from 11 a.m.-3 p.m. arlvapride.com
FXBG Pride is holding its annual community Fredericksburg Pride March on June 29 from 10-11 a.m. at Riverfront Park (705 Sophia St.) in Fredericksburg, Va. Speeches begin at 10 a.m. and the procession starts at 10:30 a.m. For more information, visit the Facebook event page.
Salisbury Pride “90’s Edition” is scheduled for 3 – 7 p.m. on June 29 in Downtown Salisbury, Md. Magnolia Applebottom is listed as the headliner and grand marshal. salisburyprideparade.com
The 2024 Suffolk Pride Festival is scheduled for Bennett’s Creek Park in Suffolk, Va. on June 30 from 12-7 p.m. Visit the Facebook event page for more information.
Expect music, entertainment and drag performances in the picturesque mountain town of Cumberland, Md. at the Cumberland Pride Festival on June 30 from 12-4 p.m. at Canal Place. cumberlandpride.org
Montgomery County’s annual Pride in the Plaza will be held on June 30 from 12-8 p.m. at Veterans Plaza (1 Veterans Place, Silver Spring, Md. liveinyourtruth.org
JULY
The sixth annual Westminster Pride Festival is scheduled for downtown Westminster, Md. on July 13 from 12-6 p.m. westminsterpride.org
Hagerstown Hopes is holding its annual Hagerstown Pride Festival in Doubs Woods Park (1307 Maryland Ave.) in Hagerstown, Md. on July 13 at 11 a.m. Visit the Facebook event page for more information.
The Rehoboth Beach Pride Festival will be held on July 20 from 10 a.m.-2 p.m., with other Sussex Pride events scheduled throughout the weekend of July 18-21. sussexpride.org
Us Giving Us Richmond hosts Black Pride RVA in Richmond, Va. with events on July 19-21. ugrcrva.org
a&e features
Eastern Shore chef named James Beard Finalist
Harley Peet creates inventive food in an inclusive space
In a small Eastern Shore town filled with boutiques, galleries, and the occasional cry of waterfowl from the Chesapeake, Chef Harley Peet is most at home. In his Viennese-inflected, Maryland-sourced fine-dining destination Bas Rouge, Peet draws from his Northern Michigan upbringing, Culinary Institute of America education, and identity as a gay man, for inspiration.
And recently, Peet was named a James Beard Finalist for Best Chef: Mid-Atlantic – the first “Best Chef: Mid-Atlantic” finalist representing the Eastern Shore.
Peet, after graduation from the Culinary Institute of America, took a position as sous chef at Tilghman Island Inn, not far from Bas Rouge. Falling in love with the Eastern Shore, he continued his passion for racing sailboats, boating, gardening, and fishing, and living his somewhat pastoral life as he opened Bas Rouge in 2016 as head chef, a restaurant part of the Bluepoint Hospitality group, which runs more than a dozen concepts in and around Easton, Md.
Coming from a rural area and being gay, Peet knew he had his work cut out for him. He was always aware that the service and hospitality industry “can be down and dirty and rough.”
Now as a leader in the kitchen, he aims to “set a good example, and treat people how I want to be treated. I also want to make sure if you’re at our establishment, I’m the first to stand up and say something.”
The Bas Rouge cuisine, he says, is Contemporary European. “I’m inspired by old-world techniques of countries like Austria, Germany, and France, but I love putting a new spin on classic dishes and finding innovative ways to incorporate the bounty of local Chesapeake ingredients.”
His proudest dish: the humble-yet-elevated Wiener Schnitzel. “It is authentic to what one would expect to find in Vienna, down to the Lingonberries.” From his in-house bakery, Peet dries and grinds the housemade Kaiser-Semmel bread to use as the breadcrumbs.
Peet works to support the LGBTQ community inside and outside of the kitchen. “I love that our Bluepoint Hospitality team has created welcoming spaces where our patrons feel comfortable dining at each of our establishments. Our staff have a genuine respect for one another and work together free of judgment.”
Representing Bluepoint, Peet has participated in events like Chefs for Equality with the Human Rights Campaign, advocating for LGBTQ rights.
At Bas Rouge, Peet brings together his passion for inclusion steeped in a sustainability ethic. He sees environmental stewardship as a way of life. Peet and his husband have lived and worked on their own organic farm for several years. Through research in Europe, he learned about international marine sourcing. Witnessing the impacts of overfishing, Peet considers his own role in promoting eco-friendly practices at Bas Rouge. To that end, he ensures responsible sourcing commitments through his purveyors, relationships that have helped create significant change in how people dine in Easton.
“I have built great relationships in the community and there’s nothing better than one of our long-standing purveyors stopping in with a cooler of fresh fish from the Chesapeake Bay. This goes especially for catching and plating the invasive blue catfish species, which helps control the species’ threat to the local ecosystem.
Through his kitchen exploits, Peet expressed a unique connection to another gay icon in a rural fine-dining restaurant: Patrick O’Connell, of three Michelin starred Inn at Little Washington. In fact, Peet’s husband helped design some of O’Connell’s kitchen spaces. They’ve both been able to navigate treacherous restaurant-industry waters, and have come out triumphant and celebrated. Of O’Connell, Peet says that he “sees [his restaurants] as canvas, all artistry, he sees this as every night is a show.” But at the same time, his “judgment-free space makes him a role model.”
Being in Easton itself is not without challenges. Sourcing is a challenge, having to either fly or ship in ingredients, whereas urban restaurants have the benefit of trucking, he says. The small town “is romantic and charming,” but logistics are difficult – one of the reasons that Peet ensures his team is diverse, building in different viewpoints, and also “making things a hell of a lot more fun.”
Reflecting on challenges and finding (and creating) space on the Eastern Shore, Peet confirmed how important it was to surround himself with people who set a good example, and “if you don’t like the way something is going … move on.”
a&e features
What to expect at the 2024 National Cannabis Festival
Wu-Tang Clan to perform; policy discussions also planned
(Editor’s note: Tickets are still available for the National Cannabis Festival, with prices starting at $55 for one-day general admission on Friday through $190 for a two-day pass with early-entry access. The Washington Blade, one of the event’s sponsors, will host a LGBTQIA+ Lounge and moderate a panel discussion on Saturday with the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs.)
With two full days of events and programs along with performances by Wu-Tang Clan, Redman, and Thundercat, the 2024 National Cannabis Festival will be bigger than ever this year.
Leading up to the festivities on Friday and Saturday at Washington, D.C.’s RFK Stadium are plenty of can’t-miss experiences planned for 420 Week, including the National Cannabis Policy Summit and an LGBTQ happy hour hosted by the District’s Black-owned queer bar, Thurst Lounge (both happening on Wednesday).
On Tuesday, the Blade caught up with NCF Founder and Executive Producer Caroline Phillips, principal at The High Street PR & Events, for a discussion about the event’s history and the pivotal political moment for cannabis legalization and drug policy reform both locally and nationally. Phillips also shared her thoughts about the role of LGBTQ activists in these movements and the through-line connecting issues of freedom and bodily autonomy.
After D.C. residents voted to approve Initiative 71 in the fall of 2014, she said, adults were permitted to share cannabis and grow the plant at home, while possession was decriminalized with the hope and expectation that fewer people would be incarcerated.
“When that happened, there was also an influx of really high-priced conferences that promised to connect people to big business opportunities so they could make millions in what they were calling the ‘green rush,'” Phillips said.
“At the time, I was working for Human Rights First,” a nonprofit that was, and is, engaged in “a lot of issues to do with world refugees and immigration in the United States” — so, “it was really interesting to me to see the overlap between drug policy reform and some of these other issues that I was working on,” Phillips said.
“And then it rubbed me a little bit the wrong way to hear about the ‘green rush’ before we’d heard about criminal justice reform around cannabis and before we’d heard about people being let out of jail for cannabis offenses.”
“As my interests grew, I realized that there was really a need for this conversation to happen in a larger way that allowed the larger community, the broader community, to learn about not just cannabis legalization, but to understand how it connects to our criminal justice system, to understand how it can really stimulate and benefit our economy, and to understand how it can become a wellness tool for so many people,” Phillips said.
“On top of all of that, as a minority in the cannabis space, it was important to me that this event and my work in the cannabis industry really amplified how we could create space for Black and Brown people to be stakeholders in this economy in a meaningful way.”
“Since I was already working in event production, I decided to use those skills and apply them to creating a cannabis event,” she said. “And in order to create an event that I thought could really give back to our community with ticket prices low enough for people to actually be able to attend, I thought a large-scale event would be good — and thus was born the cannabis festival.”
D.C. to see more regulated cannabis businesses ‘very soon’
Phillips said she believes decriminalization in D.C. has decreased the number of cannabis-related arrests in the city, but she noted arrests have, nevertheless, continued to disproportionately impact Black and Brown people.
“We’re at a really interesting crossroads for our city and for our cannabis community,” she said. In the eight years since Initiative 71 was passed, “We’ve had our licensed regulated cannabis dispensaries and cultivators who’ve been existing in a very red tape-heavy environment, a very tax heavy environment, and then we have the unregulated cannabis cultivators and cannabis dispensaries in the city” who operate via a “loophole” in the law “that allows the sharing of cannabis between adults who are over the age of 21.”
Many of the purveyors in the latter group, Phillips said, “are looking at trying to get into the legal space; so they’re trying to become regulated businesses in Washington, D.C.”
She noted the city will be “releasing 30 or so licenses in the next couple of weeks, and those stores should be coming online very soon” which will mean “you’ll be seeing a lot more of the regulated stores popping up in neighborhoods and hopefully a lot more opportunity for folks that are interested in leaving the unregulated space to be able to join the regulated marketplace.”
National push for de-scheduling cannabis
Signaling the political momentum for reforming cannabis and criminal justice laws, Wednesday’s Policy Summit will feature U.S. Sens. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), the Senate majority leader.
Also representing Capitol Hill at the Summit will be U.S. Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) and U.S. Reps. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) and Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) — who will be receiving the Supernova Women Cannabis Champion Lifetime Achievement Award — along with an aide to U.S. Rep. David Joyce (R-Ohio).
Nationally, Phillips said much of the conversation around cannabis concerns de-scheduling. Even though 40 states and D.C. have legalized the drug for recreational and/or medical use, marijuana has been classified as a Schedule I substance since the Controlled Substances Act was passed in 1971, which means it carries the heftiest restrictions on, and penalties for, its possession, sale, distribution, and cultivation.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services formally requested the drug be reclassified as a Schedule III substance in August, which inaugurated an ongoing review, and in January a group of 12 Senate Democrats sent a letter to the Biden-Harris administration’s Drug Enforcement Administration urging the agency to de-schedule cannabis altogether.
Along with the Summit, Phillips noted that “a large contingent of advocates will be coming to Washington, D.C. this week to host a vigil at the White House and to be at the festival educating people” about these issues. She said NCF is working with the 420 Unity Coalition to push Congress and the Biden-Harris administration to “move straight to de-scheduling cannabis.”
“This would allow folks who have been locked up for cannabis offenses the chance to be released,” she said. “It would also allow medical patients greater access. It would also allow business owners the chance to exist without the specter of the federal government coming in and telling them what they’re doing is wrong and that they’re criminals.”
Phillips added, however, that de-scheduling cannabis will not “suddenly erase” the “generations and generations of systemic racism” in America’s financial institutions, business marketplace, and criminal justice system, nor the consequences that has wrought on Black and Brown communities.
An example of the work that remains, she said, is making sure “that all people are treated fairly by financial institutions so that they can get the funding for their businesses” to, hopefully, create not just another industry, but “really a better industry” that from the outset is focused on “equity” and “access.”
Policy wonks should be sure to visit the festival, too. “We have a really terrific lineup in our policy pavilion,” Phillips said. “A lot of our heavy hitters from our advocacy committee will be presenting programming.”
“On Saturday there is a really strong federal marijuana reform panel that is being led by Maritza Perez Medina from the Drug Policy Alliance,” she said. “So that’s going to be a terrific discussion” that will also feature “representation from the Veterans Cannabis Coalition.”
“We also have a really interesting talk being led by the Law Enforcement Action Partnership about conservatives, cops, and cannabis,” Phillips added.
Cannabis and the LGBTQ community
“I think what’s so interesting about LGBTQIA+ culture and the cannabis community are the parallels that we’ve seen in the movements towards legalization,” Phillips said.
The fight for LGBTQ rights over the years has often involved centering personal stories and personal experiences, she said. “And that really, I think, began to resonate, the more that we talked about it openly in society; the more it was something that we started to see on television; the more it became a topic in youth development and making sure that we’re raising healthy children.”
Likewise, Phillips said, “we’ve seen cannabis become more of a conversation in mainstream culture. We’ve heard the stories of people who’ve had veterans in their families that have used cannabis instead of pharmaceuticals, the friends or family members who’ve had cancer that have turned to CBD or THC so they could sleep, so they could eat so they could get some level of relief.”
Stories about cannabis have also included accounts of folks who were “arrested when they were young” or “the family member who’s still locked up,” she said, just as stories about LGBTQ people have often involved unjust and unnecessary suffering.
Not only are there similarities in the socio-political struggles, Phillips said, but LGBTQ people have played a central role pushing for cannabis legalization and, in fact, in ushering in the movement by “advocating for HIV patients in California to be able to access cannabis’s medicine.”
As a result of the queer community’s involvement, she said, “the foundation of cannabis legalization is truly patient access and criminal justice reform.”
“LGBTQIA+ advocates and cannabis advocates have managed to rein in support of the majority of Americans for the issues that they find important,” Phillips said, even if, unfortunately, other movements for bodily autonomy like those concerning issues of reproductive justice “don’t see that same support.”
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