This Brand Sells the Same Small Amount of Cannabis That Has Led to Criminal Convictions

Kevin O’Brien Allen, now just shy of his 40th birthday, is serving a life sentence for selling $20 worth of cannabis to a police informant. His 2014 conviction, for which he’s currently held in the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, has become a cause célèbre for criminal justice reform advocates. Allen’s case and the measure of weed he was busted for—3.5 grams—is also at the heart of a campaign called "Freedom Grams" that packages and sells legal cannabis in exactly the amounts that landed people behind bars in the U.S. "Freedom Grams," which collected a bronze Lion at Cannes 2022, was one of the Grand Clio winners at the recent Clio Cannabis Awards. Its latest honor came just days before President Joe Biden, in a surprise announcement in the run-up to midterm elections, promised to begin overhauling federal marijuana laws and pardon federal cannabis convicts. One Dope Train Ticket: How a Public Transit System Gave Its Riders a Buzz During the High-Stress Holidays “No one should be in jail just for using or possessing marijuana,” Biden said in a tweet last Thursday, calling the aggressive arrest tactics during the war on drugs “a failed approach.” “Sending people to jail for possessing marijuana has upended too many lives—for conduct that is legal in many states. That’s before you address the clear racial disparities around prosecution and conviction. Today, we begin to right these wrongs.” While the Biden administration’s plan is still unfolding—and may include rescheduling cannabis, seen as a potential precursor to federal legalization—there are still some 40,000 people in American lockups for non-violent cannabis offenses. More work to be done The vast majority of those inmates—like Allen—have been convicted under local and state laws, which are not part of Biden’s reform. There’s expected to be a trickle-down effect from the presidential pardon of some 6,500 federal prisoners, and Biden urged U.S. governors to follow his lead. But releases and expungements are no guarantee for thousands of state inmates. “On first glance, we were happy to be one step closer to justice,” Shruthi Subramanian, copywriter at Serviceplan Innovation who helped craft the Freedom Grams program, told Adweek. But the proposed reform doesn’t go far enough because it misses most of those held on minor cannabis charges, including the inmates featured in "Freedom Grams," she said. “We hope that all those states, which have decriminalized cannabis in order to profit from the trade but still haven’t taken any measures toward restorative justice, take notice,” Subramanian said. “There is still a lot of work that needs to be done.” Selling out, adding states "Freedom Grams," an open-source brand, donates its proceeds to the nonprofit Last Prisoner Project, with funds raised expected to reach the “six-digit range” this year, Subramanian said. With AR-enabled packaging that highlights eight U.S. inmates and their personal stories, the first batch of product sold out shortly after its spring debut in California. It will expand to more states soon, including Washington and Colorado. Its recent award win has motivated its collaborators “as well as opening the doors to getting more partners on board and growing the initiative further,” Subramanian said. "Freedom Grams"—which features a dedicated website, editorial content and merchandise—comes from a coalition of activism-minded brands and a Hamburg, Germany-based agency. Partners include Gaby Inc. and its Southern California-based Mankind dispensary, Washington state’s cannabis cultivation platform Aroya and Last Prisoner Project. Ball Family Farms and Dewey Cannabis Co. also support the initiative. Serviceplan Group, a German marketing and ad agency with a longstanding relationship with Aroya’s parent company, spearheaded the effort’s creative ideas and execution, with cannabis product that’s sold in amounts ranging from 0.3 to 23.5 grams. ‘Net new’ buyers Though Biden’s moves into restorative justice don’t negate the need for programs like "Freedom Grams," his public statements sent cannabis stocks soaring and gave players in the space a much-needed mood boost in a turbulent time. MJBizCon, known as the granddad of weed trade shows, invited Biden to its annual conference next month in Las Vegas via tweet. “We’re still waiting to hear [from the president]," the organizers said in their email newsletter this week. Industry executives are speculating about the impact of Biden’s drug policy reform, saying it may accelerate safe banking and spark institutional investment. It could also clear a path for new regulations that would lower the sky-high taxes on the plant, according to Jon Lowen, co-founder of cannatech firm Surfside. Though Biden’s details are scant, the optics are meaningful, Lowen said. “The public sentiment will likely change—permanently—now that a sitting U.S. president has come out and said that classifying marijuana as a Schedule I drug, the same as heroin, was a ‘mistake,’” Lowen told Adweek. There may be no effect on the fierce illicit market, where cash-strapped cannafans can find weed at far lower prices than in licensed shops. But Lowen expects more fence-sitters and canna-curious buyers will join the ranks of legal dispensary shoppers. “This opens the door for a whole new set of people that have been reluctant to try cannabis,” Lowen said. “This will bring net new people into the vertical.”