Cannabis Industry - Don't Cross the Picket Line!

This week, the New West Summit, a cannabis industry conference focused exclusively on “the game-changing, disruptive developments in technology, science, media and investment within the Cannabis space” is set to host their conference at the Oakland, CA Marriott hotel from Thursday 10/10 to Sunday 10/13.

Currently, 8,000 workers at nearly two dozen Marriott hotels across 8 US cities are on strike to fight for a living wage, workplace safety, protection from sexual harassment on the job, and basic job security in the face of increasing industry automation. Workers are courageously risking their livelihoods by taking on the world’s largest and richest hotel company and fighting until they win dignity for themselves and their families. Workers helped Marriott bring in almost $23 billion in revenue last year, yet many of them have to work two or more jobs just to survive.

We as people fighting to end the global war on drugs, cannabis business owners, and legal and service providers to the cannabis industry are standing in solidarity with the 8,000 Marriott workers on strike, and will not be crossing the picket line at the Oakland Marriott to attend the New West Summit.

Will you join us to stand in solidarity with Marriott workers in Oakland and across the nation?

For us, a thriving cannabis industry means ending the war on drugs, and valuing the health and human rights of our communities above all -- it’s time for us to show what kind of industry we aspire to be, by supporting the health and human rights of Marriott workers.

We believe that we can create a thriving and flourishing cannabis industry that reflects the heart of what the movement to end the war on drugs is about -- an industry that will pay a living wage, provide safe working conditions, and treat workers with dignity and respect.

The movement to decriminalize and legalize cannabis has always been about human rights. From the 1970s struggles of gay rights activists living with HIV/AIDS to access the medicine of their choice, to people fighting to end the war on drugs and mass incarceration in primarily poor communities of color, to the harm reduction movement’s demand that people who use drugs be treated from a lens of health and compassion, not punishment and criminalization.

Workers in both the legal and illegal cannabis industries are exploited everyday, from being paid below the minimum wage and having their tips stolen, to Chinese and Vietnamese immigrants who are trafficked to the U.S. and Canada to work on cannabis farms in exploitative conditions to meet Western demand for the medicinal plant.

We acknowledge that many New West conference organizers, attendees, and sponsors are choosing to to cross the picket line and attend New West because of the substantial monetary costs that many have already invested. In writing this statement, we do not intend to antagonize the New West conference; rather, we recognize that we as a cannabis industry and movement are powerful -- in choosing not to cross the picket line, we are making a powerful statement to the Marriott that we as a cannabis industry are watching their actions and are holding them accountable to higher standards of how they treat their workers.

And if the goal of the cannabis industry is to create an equitable, sustainable, and humane industry that has basic standards to treat working people with dignity and respect -- we will not cross the picket line.

In this political moment where the rights of working families are being eroded by the federal administration attacks on workers’ ability to organize through Janus vs. AFSCME, crossing the picket line not only undermines Marriott workers’ rights -- they undermine the rights of all working people, including those in the cannabis industry.