The second I met Madison Hernandez, I knew I used to be within the presence of a real hashish chief.
Hernandez is that more and more uncommon mixture of artist, researcher, and group builder. She served as one of many principal authors of Excessive Stakes, the UCLA Labor Middle’s landmark report on California’s hashish workforce and helped convey queer hashish historical past to life via Coming Out Inexperienced, a multimedia set up celebrating LGBTQ+ hashish leaders from throughout California, and her vivid and colourful psychedelic drawings have been exhibited with Artwork Share LA. Hernandez can be the founding father of The Hashish Membership, a group gathering held each third Tuesday in Echo Park that explores the politics, pleasures, and potentialities of hashish. She is presently finding out knowledge science and statistical analytics with a deal with hashish.
We determined to conduct our Hashish & Tech At present interview at a hashish lounge, a job that proved tougher than it sounds, even in Los Angeles. The Artist Tree’s lounge lowered its hours. PleasureMed’s lounge had closed altogether. So we landed at The Woods in West Hollywood, a swanky hashish lounge co-owned by Woody Harrelson that appears prefer it might double as a set for The White Lotus: koi ponds, tropical timber, intermittently talkative blue macaws, and elevated treehouse cabanas.
A beneficiant budtender with salt-and-pepper locs and realizing eyes took our order. I selected a Moon Made Farms Nightlight joint; she opted for a Cannadescént Join pre-roll. Jay-Z, Miguel, and Drake drifted via the audio system whereas a server, sporting maximalist pink furry slippers, delivered our natural teas.
For Hernandez, each dispensary, employee survey, metropolis ordinance, and neighborhood map is one other knowledge level in a a lot bigger query: Who will get to belong in hashish?
C&T At present: You’ve labored on the intersection of sociology, statistical evaluation, and hashish for years. For readers who might not instantly see the connection, what can knowledge reveal concerning the hashish business that anecdotes and instinct alone can’t?
Madison Hernandez: I truly love that they overlap. I wish to say folks already know one thing, after which the information simply confirms it. That’s typically the case with sociology, we expertise these items first, after which we discover methods to measure them. What knowledge provides is the maths behind our instinct. You’re capable of put numbers to issues like costs, THC ranges, or whether or not hashish is allowed in a selected metropolis or county. I like qualitative analysis too, however there’s one thing highly effective about making data measurable. A share or a chart helps folks perceive what they’ve already been feeling. I even have a tough time verbalizing my very own emotions generally, so having the ability to show one thing via numbers is actually satisfying. That’s why I like knowledge science. It doesn’t change lived expertise, it helps us quantify it.
C&T At present: You had been one of many researchers behind UCLA Labor Middle’s Excessive Stakes, the primary complete report on California’s hashish workforce. What shocked you most?
MH: What shocked me wasn’t that queer folks had been represented in hashish—it was simply how represented they had been. Round 12% of Californians determine as LGBTQ+, however our analysis discovered that greater than 20% of hashish employees did. That’s a stupendous overrepresentation. It additionally made me notice we’re typically overlooking queer hashish employees, brown employees, and girls. We speak about “the hashish business” as if it’s one factor, but it surely’s made up of all these completely different communities whose experiences deserve consideration. One other factor that stood out was timing. The general public we surveyed hadn’t been in hashish for ten or fifteen years. Many had entered in the course of the pandemic as a result of hashish was thought of important work. That actually modified my understanding of who right this moment’s hashish employee is.
C&T At present: One of the crucial fascinating components of the report was the way you approached employees’ personal tales. Reasonably than treating qualitative responses as an afterthought, you discovered a solution to make them a part of the information itself.
MH: That just about didn’t occur. We surveyed 1,111 hashish employees and carried out 50 in-depth interviews. The ultimate survey query merely requested, “What would you want the general public to find out about hashish?” Practically everybody answered. The problem turned: How do you analyze lots of of fully completely different responses? I exported each reply into Excel, created phrase clouds, seemed for recurring themes, and constructed classes round them. It was actually about combining sociological interpretation with quantitative evaluation. I wished to protect what folks had been saying whereas additionally figuring out patterns. One factor turned very clear. Sure, employees wished higher pay, however the second greatest concern was security. They wished advantages. They wished job safety. They wished the credibility of working with a medical product. These considerations are simple to miss when the workforce itself is usually ignored.
Learn extra: Virginia to Enable Grownup-Use Hashish Gross sales in 2027 – Hashish & Tech At present
C&T At present: All through our dialog, you saved returning to the connection between tales and statistics. It nearly looks as if you don’t see qualitative and quantitative analysis as competing approaches.
MH: Under no circumstances. I like storytelling via knowledge. One instance from class concerned analysis displaying that males are a lot much less seemingly than girls to hunt preventative healthcare. The info tells you that’s true. Then folks instantly begin asking, “Why?” Somebody in school stated, “Properly, males don’t go to the physician till one thing’s fallacious.” That clarification wasn’t within the knowledge, however the knowledge impressed that dialog. That’s my favourite half. The numbers reveal a sample, after which folks start considering critically about what it means. Knowledge doesn’t finish the story. It begins one.
C&T At present: One of many issues that fascinated me was your curiosity about geography. You observed that Artesia, Malibu, and West Hollywood all have distinctive approaches to hashish licensing, and your intuition wasn’t to guage them, it was to ask, “What’s occurring over there?” Why is that query so attention-grabbing to you?
MH: I’m making an attempt to deal with what good is occurring. We already know employees might be underpaid or overworked. We’ve heard these tales. I don’t wish to spend all my time documenting issues, I wish to discover the locations which might be getting one thing proper. After I observed these cities had related licensing buildings, I instantly wished to know why. What makes them completely different? What can different communities be taught from them? Possibly the reply has to do with geography. Possibly it’s the companies round them. Possibly it’s coverage. I don’t know but, and that’s thrilling. Knowledge offers you clues, and then you definately comply with them. I don’t imagine we’ve got to invent higher methods from scratch. In spite of everything this time, somebody, someplace, is already doing it properly. My job is to search out them.
C&T At present: California is usually held up because the mannequin for authorized hashish, however you’ve instructed it’s additionally a cautionary story. Wanting again over the previous decade, what do you assume the business nonetheless hasn’t discovered?
MH: I feel we’ve misunderstood the place advocacy must be directed. Too typically we see social fairness companies annoyed with unlicensed operators, when the true difficulty is the system itself. They’re paying huge taxes and navigating rules that had been by no means designed to assist them succeed. As an alternative of punching down, we must be pushing up, for tax reform and higher coverage. I’ve additionally watched social fairness candidates turn out to be targets for predatory buyers and loans. That historical past retains repeating as a result of we aren’t studying from it. For me, entry remains to be the most important difficulty. Hashish must be accessible to adults in methods which might be considerate, equitable, and community-centered. California has taught us lots, but it surely has additionally proven us how simple it’s to recreate boundaries even after legalization.
C&T At present: You’re equal components researcher, artist, and group builder. As your work evolves, what sorts of collaborations are you hoping to tackle subsequent?
MH: My current micro-internship with Los Angeles Group Faculty and Cal Poly Pomona confirmed me that paid coaching and office expertise is what folks and college students crave. I hope to be part of a group school paid hashish office internship program or academy. I additionally need the Hashish Membership to have an effect on cannabis-specific coverage. I might additionally like to collaborate with aligned girls, queer, and BIPOC owned manufacturers with knowledge assortment and interpretation.
