, Cohen wanted to do something to try to address the harms of America’s prohibition on pot and help more Black entrepreneurs get a foothold in the industry.
“We started joking around about coming out with a brand—‘Mediocre Marijuana,’ ‘Shitty Pot’ or ‘Low Dose Dope,’” he says. “And the idea just kept on rolling around in my head and I couldn't get rid of it. So, I decided to start the business.” Cohen explained that he had five different effects he wanted to create—focused, energetic, sleepy, euphoric, and relaxed—and the two went on a year-and-a-half journey testing different strains infused with various levels of terpenes and THC levels on a group of 35 participants, ranging from heavy smokers to newbies between the ages of 22 and 75. During the blind study, participants smoked eight joints a week and reported the effect of each to Cohen and Walsh through SurveyMonkey.
The Brooklyn-born Cohen grew up in Merrick, Long Island and jokes that he has failed his way to the top. After attending Colgate, Skidmore and the alternative education program University Without Walls, he dropped out. In 1973, he hitchhiked to Ohio to live with Greenfield, who was studying at Oberlin, where he slept on the floor and smoked pot until the two went to New York. Cohen tried to become a professional artist, but no one wanted to buy his pottery.
High Minded: “After people have smoked some pot, they kind of have a yen for some ice cream," says Cohen, with Jerry Greenfield in 1985.Now, 23 years later, Cohen is living 30 minutes outside of Burlington in a home that used to be a summer camp and he plans to get fully baked for the rest of his life with B3. His decision to not draw a salary or pull any profits off his new company was driven by two factors: “I don’t need more money,” he says.
“As we build a cannabis industry,” Ward says, “as America changes its mind about this plant, state by state, we have to do more than just legalize—we have to address the economic damage and economic reparations as a result of the industry as well.”