Breaking the Grass Ceiling

Megan Sheehan, left, and Zara Salmon, right, are paving the way for women and people of color in the cannabis industry.

Megan Sheehan, owner and attorney at Green Path Legal, is no stranger to lady boss energy: She watched her mother leave waitressing behind to pursue a law degree and eventually open her own firm, Sheehan & Associates Law, in Massachusetts. 

Sheehan followed in her footsteps, opening the Rhode Island branch of her family’s firm. It was there she developed a passion for working with small businesses. When some of those visions included selling products like CBD and hemp, Sheehan became interested in cannabis law, launching Green Path Legal in 2022. 

The firm offers legal services for cannabis businesses, from formation and business services to licensing and regulatory compliance. With the recent approval of the adult-use statute and the creation of the Cannabis Control Commission, Sheehan says it’s an exciting time to be in the industry. 

The state is creating new manufacturing licenses for those who want to make and sell edibles, she says, as well as prioritizing retail licensing for worker cooperatives and for social equity applicants, which creates “a lot of opportunity for more women and people of color to enter the industry.”

She points to Zara Salmon, owner of CRAVEInfused, as a leader in the local social equity movement. Salmon founded her plant-based lifestyle brand (think: CBD-infused cosmetics and cannabis-related events) in 2019, but her passion for the cause goes back to her college days when she wrote her political science thesis on what the legalization of cannabis meant for businesses and marginalized minorities. 

“I was like, ‘I wonder if this can actually be an opportunity — like will this go back into the community?’” she says. “But I realized after each and every single legalize cannabis event I went to, I was almost always the only Black person in the room. 

“The legal cannabis industry is like any other industry,” she says. “If you’re Black or a person of color within the cannabis space, it’s something you have a chip on your shoulder over, especially if you know the history on the War on Drugs.”

When she learned the Cannabis Control Commission would create regulations for the administration and distribution of a social equity assistance fund, it caught her attention. Kristina Contreras, director of policy at the Rhode Island Black Business Association, suggested Salmon host a policy salon to bring the cannabis community together and start a conversation. Sheehan attended the first salon in the spring and Green Path Legal helped host the next four. 

During the sessions, they discussed two loopholes in the social equity application: one that would allow large corporations to qualify if they had a majority impoverished workforce, Salmon says, and one that would let philanthropists apply if they made a sizable donation to a disproportionately impacted area.

“If there’s only six social equity licenses allowed in Rhode Island, that’s taking away spots from people that could actually benefit from those licenses,” Salmon says.

They also focused on the social equity fund itself, looking at how it will be funded and distributed, and highlighting any potential issues to hopefully prevent it from running into pitfalls experienced by other administrations. 

“Something that we’re really pushing for is the CCC to really be looking at other states and learning lessons,” says Sheehan. “We’re ten years behind or more from Colorado, California and Washington, so we can see what worked well and what hasn’t to create the best social equity program and the best cannabis regulation program, as opposed to starting from scratch or recreating the wheel.”

To garner public support, she, Salmon and their cohorts plan to present proposed updates to the Rhode Island Cannabis Act and a draft of the CCC regulations at a free Celebration of Legalization event they’re hosting at the Event Factory in Warwick on Dec. 1. greenpathlegal.com; craveinfused.com