Jake Plowden is the deputy director and a co-founder of The Cannabis Cultural Association, a 501c3 nonprofit organization that provides resources for disenfranchised communities to get into legal cannabis and hemp. Growing up in Brooklyn and Harlem, he has witnessed firsthand the destructive components of the Drug War and its socioeconomic effects on African American/Latinx communities.
The CCA educates in both English and Spanish to ensure that communities are not lost in translation or left behind in the green rush.
He co-founded the CCA alongside Nelson Guerrero back in 2016 in response to the lack of diversity and inclusion in the growing cannabis industry, especially for millennials of color. He produces and organizes events surrounding cannabis education, entrepreneurship, policy, advocacy/activism, and the War On Drugs’ effects on communities of color. He uses photography and writing to further understanding of the intercultural experiences within drug policy.
He also the executive producer and co-host of the weekly podcast “In The Know 420” with a criminal attorney and cannabis advocate Joseph Bondy.
Jake and the CCA are suing Attorney General Jeff Sessions and The Drug Enforcement Agency. alongside Alexis Bortell, Jose Belen, Jagger Cotte, and Marvin Washington for the removal of cannabis from the Controlled Substances Act.