Ben & Jerry's co-founder launches non-profit cannabis brand

Ben & Jerry's co-founder Ben Cohen has launched a cannabis brand called Ben's Best Blnz, or B3, and the company's profits will be used for social purposes. The company's official mission is «to sell good weed and use the power of business to right the wrongs of the war on drugs».

«The idea [for the brand] came to me on a camping trip with a friend, sitting around a fire and smoking a joint. And we thought, «It would be nice to have grass like in the good old days»," Ben Cohen explained to journalist Abigail Glasgow.

Ben's Best pre-rolls

And behind the desire to recapture the effects of yesteryear, Ben Cohen has obviously opted for a very social approach for his brand. B3 has thus been registered as a non-profit organization, and 80 % of the company's profits will be entrusted to the NuProject association and donated in the form of grants to black entrepreneurs in the cannabis sector.A further 10% will go to the Last Prisoner Project and 10% will be paid to the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance.

For Ben Cohen, this latest initiative aims to address the huge generational wealth gap caused by the systemic oppression of blacks in the United States. «The average black family has 1/10th the wealth of a white family,» he explains. «I feel that business ownership is one of the best ways to access generational wealth.»

The brand will offer products with a low THC content, including pre-rolled and vape pen.

Ben's Best vape pen

Product packaging features quotes from abolitionist Angela Davis and former South African president Nelson Mandela.

It was designed by Dana Robinson, whose Ebony Reprinted recontextualizes advertisements from the 1950s and 1960s. Robinson has created a new piece for the brand, recontextualizing an old magazine advertisement that serves as the motif for packaging and communication visuals.

The work of Dana Robinson

«Schedule 1 is at the root of the war on drugs,» Cohen says of the racist campaign by Nixon's disproportionate targeting of blacks which is at the root of the current problem of mass incarceration. Historically Blacks were arrested four times more more often than whites to have used cannabis.

«Schedule 1 is supposed to be reserved for drugs that have no medical value and present a high risk of dependence», adds Mr. Cohen, «which doesn't apply to weed, but to beer».

With a mission to «sell good weed and use the power of business to right the wrongs of the war on drugs», B3’s products are sure to become one of the tools for decarceration, education and prevention.’erasing criminal records and rehabilitation of convicted offenders.