Tea Pad is Virtual March 25, 2021 "Executing Your DEI: Connecting with Community"
Know us & Join us
Tea Pad is a social enterprise
Social enterprises are revenue-generating businesses focused on making social change. Tea Pad is a change maker - we're breaking down barriers to entry into the cannabis industry. We're doing it by empowering people with access to education.
Tea Pad is a networking group committed to social justice.
Meet and mingle with legislators and industry regulators. Make new partnerships, joint ventures or new areas for expansion of your cannabis business and demonstrate your company's commitment to social justice in the cannabis industry.
Tea Pad does good & has fun!
Live jazz, libations, good eats & more happen at every Tea Pad. Proceeds fund the Tea Pad Scholarship for Minority Entrepreneurship.
Tea Pads' Reinvention
The majority of states now have a medical cannabis program and several states have an adult-use program or are likely to launch one in 2021 yet significant obstacles prevent people of color and women from having equitable access to resources to be part of the legal cannabis industry. Particularly, the Black and Brown communities have suffered the most under United States cannabis prohibition and the racially-disparate enforcement of the War on Drugs.
A 2017 disparity study ordered by Maryland's governor focused on Maryland’s nascent medical cannabis industry identified that women of color had been the most disadvantaged by barriers to entry into the industry. That study was the necessary proof required by Maryland legislators to move forward in 2018 as the first state in the nation to address necessary correct disparities in the industry.
Recognizing that social justice is imperative to an equitable legal cannabis industry and there are barriers in place which preclude its achievement, Tea Pad was founded and launched in Maryland in 2019. It was launched with a mission is to break down barriers preventing a person of any gender or race from gaining access to the cannabis industry as an entrepreneur. In 2020, Tea Pad New Jersey was launched with the intent to help achieve equity and social justice in its developing adult-use cannabis industry.
Today, Tea Pad is a networking group for like-minded professionals, regulators and legislators with a shared commitment that the nation’s burgeoning cannabis industry is fair and just with opportunity for all. Tea Pad events are held throughout the year in a convivial atmosphere with keynotes delivered with the underlying tone of the current status of equity in the cannabis industry and how it can be ensured.
Proceeds of Tea Pad events support The Tea Pad Scholarship for Minority Entrepreneurship which is intended to provide tools necessary to become a leader, an innovator and an entrepreneur in the cannabis industry
Be a Tea Pad AMBASSADOR!
Tea Pad in Your Community
Tea Pad ambassadors are committed to social justice and have a passion for a safe and just cannabis industry just as our Advisory Board and leadership is. Please complete a short form and share how you'd be an asset to a Tea Pad in your community.