Why Brown Girl Jane Built a Business Around Providing CBD Products Specific to Black Women’s Wellness

Now, more than ever, the cannabis plant is in the news. Recently, conversation turned to athlete Sha’Carri Richardson, who was denied entry to the U.S. Olympic team after testing positive for marijuana. Richardson says she used marijuana to help her manage her feelings after her mother died.

According to the United States Department of Health for Minority Health, black adults in the United States are “more likely than white adults to report persistent symptoms of emotional stress such as sadness, hopelessness, and the feeling of strain.” Several insiders and experts in the cannabis industry have supported the theory that cannabis can help with both emotions and physical ailments.

The conversation about black women’s health and cannabis – and one of its properties, CBD in particular – is not new to the founders of Washington, DC-based Brown Girl Jane, a black wellness company with CBD as the main ingredient in its products. Brown Girl Jane was launched in 2020 and gets its CBD from US-grown hemp, a strain of the cannabis sativa plant.

“Plant-based medicine is not new to us. I mean, we’ve been doing this for eons and eons as people of color. But also with really helping women understand that we don’t have to live this way, ”said Tai Beauchamp, co-founder of Brown Girl Jane. “If you look at black women, we suffer disproportionately from anxiety, from depression. In our community, it is often important to pour yourself out for others and leave yourself – especially as a black woman, which often happens – is to leave yourself at the end, ”added co-founder Malaika Jones Kebede.

Tai Beauchamp, co-founder of Brown Girl Jane, and products from Brown Girl Jane, a black-owned wellness company with CBD as a main ingredient. (Photos: Courtesy Brown Girl Jane)

Brown Girl Jane offers a variety of oils, gums, and body butters with CBD and is specifically aimed at women of color. “We are by far one of the few, one of the first. And that’s again one of the reasons we started and why we don’t apologize like that, what we did and how we put women of color at the center. Because we saw the need and we saw that we were not approached and we saw that the access was not there for this truly amazing, dynamic facility to be used in so many ways, ”said Jones Kebede.

But what exactly is CBD and how can it be used? Sandra Guynes, a registered nurse unaffiliated with Brown Girl Jane, explains. “CBD and THC are the most popular or most abundant cannabinoids in the cannabis plant. And we know that while CBD has all of these medicinal values ​​and properties, it doesn’t have the psychoactive effects that THC does. As a result, many people are sometimes more open to trying CBD because they don’t want to feel high, ”said Guynes. Guynes, also known as The Kush Nurse, founded the Cannabis Nurses of Color Connect (CNOC) and is a member of several organizations such as the American Cannabis Nurses Association and the Minority Cannabis Business Association. She advocates cannabis use and the science behind it.

“People who suffer from pain can benefit greatly from CBD, people who suffer from anxiety or depression,” said Guynes. “It’s very good against inflammation, so many people with inflammatory diseases like lupus and autoimmune diseases. A lot of autoimmune diseases cause inflammatory processes and we’ve found a lot of benefits with it – arthritis, ”she said.

While Guynes advocates the use of CBD, especially long-term, she says science is also proving amazing results with a combination of CBD and THC. Brown Girl Jane extracts all traces of THC from its CBD, backed up by lab reports, so that consumers can have an experience without the feeling of “high” or high.

CBD is currently legal in all 50 states with different regulations, and many states allow some form of medical marijuana containing THC. However, the industry is still very restrictive, with few black-owned brands and an often negative stigma – especially when it comes to THC. “I think we need more vendors who look like the people they serve so we can have more of these conversations. And we need more of us going into the fellowship and having these conversations to change that stigma, ”Guynes said.

“For us as a brand, it’s definitely different to be in this CBD category, which is mostly white men and has less than 4 percent people with color in the room,” commented Beauchamp. “Our goal is to be a shining example and resource and support for women like us to say they deserve to be and be healthy.”

Find Brown Girl Jane’s products at browngirljane.com and Guynes at thekushnurse.com that treat a variety of ailments through herbal medicine and education.