The Power 100: The Black Leaders Who Built Cannabis, Not Just the Ones You Know

As the cannabis industry professionalizes, consolidates, and globalizes, a basic question still goes unanswered far too often:
Who built this space, and who paid the price before it became profitable?

To mark Black History Month and its 10th anniversary, Minorities for Medical Marijuana (M4MM) has released its inaugural Power 100, recognizing 100 Black leaders whose work shaped cannabis culture, patient access, policy reform, and community organizing long before legalization became a business model.

This is not an awards rollout. It is closer to a historical record.

“This list is about impact, not optics,” said M4MM Founder and CEO Roz McCarthy. “It documents who showed up early, stayed when it was difficult, and carried the weight of advocacy when there was no economic upside.”

That framing matters. The Power 100 is not about who is winning now. It is about who made it possible for anyone to win at all.

Why the Power 100 Exists

Long before cannabis became a regulated market or a venture-backed industry, Black communities absorbed the harshest consequences of prohibition. Arrests, incarceration, surveillance, and economic exclusion were not side effects. They were policy outcomes.

While legalization has opened doors for some, many of the people who fought for reform did so at personal and professional risk, with little recognition once the industry shifted toward capital and scale.

The Power 100 exists to close that gap.

Rather than measuring annual performance or revenue, M4MM focused on long-term influence, including:

Expanding patient access and medical cannabis programs
Shaping local, state, and federal cannabis policy
Building advocacy organizations and education platforms
Creating pathways for equity participation
Normalizing cannabis through culture, research, and public discourse

In many cases, the work recognized here predates legalization entirely, spanning early medical cannabis efforts, grassroots organizing, and policy fights that laid the groundwork for today’s frameworks.

A Decade of Advocacy as Context

The release of the Power 100 coincides with M4MM’s 10-year anniversary, offering context for why this list matters now.

Over the past decade, M4MM reports:

Supporting more than 500 equity business operators
Engaging across 27 state medical cannabis programs
Reaching over 500,000 annual digital impressions
Providing 2,000+ individuals free access to cannabis education and advocacy services
Distributing 100,000+ pieces of educational literature
Facilitating 1,500+ hours of business-to-business instruction
Contributing 5,000+ hours of policy planning and preparation

These numbers reflect infrastructure building that rarely makes headlines but shapes outcomes. They also underscore how much of cannabis reform has been carried quietly, outside of mainstream recognition.

Not a Ranking. A Record.

The Power 100 is intentionally unranked.

“There’s no hierarchy to liberation work,” McCarthy said. “Some of the most influential leaders never held titles or attracted capital, but their fingerprints are all over today’s policies and programs.”

The list spans a wide range of roles and disciplines, including:

Policy advocates and legislative architects
Medical professionals and patient educators
Founders and operators in regulated markets
Researchers, attorneys, and public servants
Cultural figures who shifted public perception

Together, they represent what M4MM describes as the connective tissue of cannabis reform. The people who bridged health, justice, culture, and opportunity before those intersections became industry language.

Media Partnership and Documentation

The Power 100 is being released in partnership with Cash Color Cannabis, which will support editorial amplification, interviews, and digital storytelling around the honorees throughout the year.

According to M4MM, the list will also live as a permanent archive on its website, with profiles, historical context, and updates over time. The intent is continuity, not a one-cycle announcement.

Why It Matters Now

As federal reform remains uncertain and capital continues to concentrate within the cannabis industry, long-standing questions around equity, access, and accountability are resurfacing.

The Power 100 arrives as:

States revisit or recalibrate social equity programs
Medical patients face access challenges in adult-use markets
Policymakers assess the real outcomes of legalization

By centering people who shaped reform before it was profitable, the list challenges the industry to reconcile growth with responsibility.

The question it raises is not abstract. It is structural.

Who benefits from legalization, and whose work made it possible?

Looking Forward

M4MM has indicated that the Power 100 will expand into ongoing programming, including policy briefings, educational initiatives, and public recognition tied to broader reform efforts.

For now, the inaugural list stands as a reminder that the cannabis industry did not emerge fully formed. Its credibility going forward depends, in part, on whether it remembers its architects.

As legalization continues to evolve, the Power 100 reframes a critical question:

Who gets credit for building the road, and who is still being asked to walk it?