Clinton Hill Reverend Wins 'Cannabis Trailblazer' Award

CLINTON HILL, BROOKLYN — A local reverend whose congregation became the first to host a cannabis conference in a church has now also become the first to receive the "Cannabis Trailblazer Award" for courage.

Emerging nonprofit Brooklyn Cannabiz Collective honored Rev. Anthony Trufant and three other trailblazers in the cannabis industry last week in the first ever award ceremony dedicated to recognizing people of color that are making a difference in the cannabis industry.

Trufant's award recognized his role in setting up national marijuana conference, "Business of Cannabis Mini-Summit," that brought hundreds of activists, residents and industry leaders to Emmanuel Baptist Church on Lafayette Avenue.

The event, which highlighted and helped address the lack of minorities that make up the cannabis industry, wouldn't have been possible without Trufant taking the chance to convince his largely older, conservative church leaders, advocates said.

"For him to push to the point where he could make that happen, I think courage is obvious there," said Michael Lambert, a member of the collective's leadership team. "He could've gotten a lot of blowback, but they trusted him."

Similar to the church's mini-summit, Cannabiz's award ceremony was a step toward bringing people of color into the cannabis conversation, especially given the chance of legalization, Lambert said.

The goal of the organization, started by Al Florant, is to educate people about the opportunities in the industry to help build wealth in communities of color, he added. Florant started the organization after he saw the potential in a series of informal "mastermind meetings" that brought together experts or advocates in the cannabis world.

"There are all these booms going on right in front of us and especially a black and latino communities are not taking advantage of some of these opportunities," Lambert said. "Al saw the same thing with cannabis. Now we have more people having the conversation."

The Cannabis Trailblazer Award ceremony also included talks from local experts about the benefits of cannabis, an update from Assembly Member Tremaine Wright about Albany's legislative session and advice about how to approach cannabis investments.

It was attended by more than one hundred investors, business people, elected officials and other community members at Bedford Manor in Bed-Stuy, organizers said. The ceremony was sponsored by Citiva, Brooklyn's first cannabis dispensary, that recently opened on Flatbush Avenue.