,” medicinal benefits and economic opportunity became centerpieces of state legalization campaigns. “Anecdotally, a Washington advocate for marijuana legalization told me that racial profiling arguments won’t win legalization campaigns and instead will alienate voters,” Bender writes.
For Los Angeles chef Matt Stockard, fighting against the perception of cannabis food as a means of getting intoxicated, rather than a means of getting well, is a constant battle. Dispelling that stigma is part of what inspired him to develop medicated items like salt, pepper, milk, and cream. “In the black community you’re considered uneducated if you deal with cannabis,” he says.
“It’s an easily accessible medication that I think every community should take advantage of, especially the black community,“ Maryland chef Gwenelle Parks says, citing black communities’ historic distrust of medical institutions. “We’ve been [self-medicating with cannabis] for a long time... but if you actually need it as medicine, there’s different ways to go about it.” For Parks, cooking with cannabis was a natural extension of her Virgin Islander family’s herbalist traditions.
Across the country, accessibility is also a driving concern for Seattle chef Unika Noiel. Coming from a family of soul food chefs and restaurateurs, she had already started catering and gone to culinary school before she beginning to experiment with cannabis-infused foods in 2009.
As one who is interested in medicinal cooking - Indian, Chinese, Native American, etc - and as one who is not normally interested in cannabis/CBD products - I thought I'd give the article a chance (as an article on medicinal cooking).