Natacha Andrews, Esq., Executive Director of National Association of Black Cannabis Lawyers – Interview Series

As the cannabis industry continues to expand at the fast rate that it is, so will the field of cannabis law. And very similarly to cannabis consumers themselves, lawyers who specialize in the various duties of cannabis law come from all walks of life and diverse backgrounds. One such organization that promotes diversity among cannabis lawyers is the North Carolina-based National Association of Black Cannabis Lawyers. Notably, Executive Director Natacha Andrews also teaches Cannabis Law & Policy at Widener University and previously taught at her undergraduate alma mater, Rutgers.

What initially made you want to attend law school, and were there any fields of law in particular you were interested in studying prior to law school?

As the child of immigrant parents I was raised with the stereotypical “choice” of either becoming a doctor, lawyer or engineer. My significant allergy to numeric equations and predisposition to curiosity mixed this with a loquacious nature made this a simple decision.

Initially I was drawn to a calling towards juvenile justice. Although in retrospect, I believe this was due to being a child of the pre-internet 80’s which offered very little insight into the various disciplines one could focus on as a lawyer. Upon entering law school, I learned very quickly that I did not have the proper moral makeup to practice criminal law, which is more about burdens of proof than it is about right and wrong. In addition, being steeped in the heart breaking world of unruly juveniles and an incredibly biased judicial system did not illicit in me a desire to take on the emotional stress of a criminal law.

What subjects and courses did you study while attending Rutgers as an undergrad, and how did they prepare you for attending Howard University’s School of Law?

I was one of very few students (if not the only) to have had a triple major and a minor at Rutgers, while being a student athlete and graduating in 4 years. I majored in Political Science, Journalism and African American Studies. I minored in Spanish.

Political Science was a wonderful base for my law school studies, providing me with a basic understanding of the American legal system. Journalism afforded me an outlet for my creative side in balance with my inclination towards justice. In law school this latter benefit of my journalistic pursuit would be further developed. My African American Studies major allowed me to supplement some of the shortcomings of our American Education system which has always insisted on isolating a skewed retelling of American history which exaggerates the contributions on one sect of society while grossly eliminating any other contributors, creating a lopsided narrative designed to help promulgate the desired status quo. In law school this helped me to quickly discern between what the law claimed to do and how it actually impacted people.

While attending Howard, what were some important assignments or lessons in law school that really stuck with you throughout your career? What fields of law did you end up specializing in, and why do you believe those fields of law are crucial?

At Howard University School of Law, the two things that stood out the most to me were:

a) the core value instilled in every student that as lawyers, we would each be “…either a social engineer or a parasite on society.” This notion which was originally coined by Charles Hamilton Houston, a prominent African American lawyer, civil rights activist, and educator was a statement he used to inspire his students at Howard University School of Law In it, he emphasized the role of lawyers as agents of social change who address injustices and improve society; and

b) the opportunity to stand as a “legal observer” during the first Million Man March,” a political demonstration in Washington, DC, led by Black men and aimed at promoting wholesome family values, voter registration, community activism, and uplifting Black communities. The event featured speeches by American historical figures such as Jesse Jackson, Rosa Parks, and Maya Angelou. As a first year student and “legal observer,”. This afforded me my first true taste of political activism and allowed me to use some of my freshly acquired legal skills to assist participants by monitoring, documenting, and ensuring the protection of their constitutional rights during the peaceful assembly.

In the end, I wound up practicing immigration law. After my parents naturalized, I realized that as a nation made up almost exclusively of immigrants, we had a very complex system of immigration that did not afford the same rights on an equal basis to non- Americans seeking to live, work and contribute to our society. But rather, certain nations enjoyed a significant advantage over how and when they could immigrate. As a person who speaks 4 languages, I was able to use my advantage to help people from all over the world unite with family and share in the pursuit of the coveted American dream.

What are the usual duties of an immigration attorney, and how did your duties as an immigration attorney and immigration law in general change from the Obama to Trump administration?

For the type of immigration that I focused on most, family unification, my typical duties were to assist married and/or engaged couples to obtain green cards for their significant others and then later to help those individuals become American citizens. I also helped other family unification efforts bringing parents, children and siblings to the US. Citizens into the United States both to visit and to live permanently.

My duties changed significantly between the Obama and Trump administrations as I went from being someone who helped people attain part of the American Dream, to someone who defended vulnerable populations against the American Nightmare. The moment we began threatening the safety and livelihood of people we had previously convinced to come out of hiding through the DACA initiative and began justifying putting babies into cages, was the moment I decided that for my own mental wellbeing and the health of my family, I could no longer be part of our Immigration System.

How did you professionally transition into cannabis law, and what were the defining moments that led to that decision to drastically change your legal specialty? Are there some skills or aspects of being an immigration attorney that are transferable and useful when it comes to being a cannabis attorney?

I chose to transition into cannabis law shortly after deciding to leave immigration. At the time I had no idea what was next and at that point in June 2019, I had no idea that cannabis was legal anywhere in the United States. By happenstance, I attended a business conference to watch a family friend speak on a panel. Although neither the conference nor the panel I attended had anything to do with cannabis, I had the great fortune of speaking to one of the panelists, who had been described as a “cannabis lawyer”. Intrigued by the moniker, I stopped him in order to find out what exactly “cannabis attorney” meant.

To that point, the only knowledge I had of cannabis was that it was a drug and my only (very limited) interaction with laws surrounding cannabis involved people who would occasionally seek my legal help to assist a loved one detained and set for deportation as a result of its possession. To hear that marijuana (I did not know the term “cannabis” at the time), was legal in some parts of the country and for some people it was used as medicine completely blew my mind. Not long afterwards the combination of my inquisitive nature and drive for justice compelled me to seek to understand how some people were afforded access to medicine and opportunities for economic success while others faced incarceration or deportation over the same plant.

I was blessed at that time to learn that my beloved state of NJ was in the process of creating a regulatory body to preside over cannabis licensing review for the newly created adult use market. This afforded me the perfect opportunity to get involved with the NJ State Bar’s Special Committee on Cannabis and the experience of ground level insight learning how a new body of law is created irrevocable changed my life.

Although most might find it a huge transition from immigration to cannabis, the distance is made immensely shorter when one realizes that “cannabis law is a misnomer, in that almost all law can have a cannabis related component since the people who use, need and run businesses in cannabis all share the same basic needs as any other patients or businesses. Additionally many of the skills I gained working in an ever changing and highly complex and debated industry such as immigration were easily transferable to the wildly disjointed and compliance heavy cannabis ecosystem.

How would you describe your first few years of practicing cannabis law? What were the most common legal issues that your clients ran into and how have the duties of a cannabis lawyer changed as the industry expands?

Most of my work in cannabis has been rooted in advocacy, in an effort to help ensure that we attain federal legalization in a manner that is rooted in science while it is also acknowledging the harm caused by the nearly 100 years since the start of prohibition. Hand in hand with my quest for fair legalization, has been my passion for education and redirecting the narratives surrounding cannabis as plant medicine to both attorneys from marginalized communities as well as the public in general. Most of my clients in the early days focused on how to “get into” the industry. Today most are more concerned with, “how can I survive in the cannabis industry.

This along with my own recollection of how challenging it was to wrap my mind around the vast new vocabulary, conflicts of law, lack of credible resources, and fear of judgment for practicing cannabis law, caused me to want to help bring other attorneys like me who had grown up believing the nonsense of Reefer Madness and could not quite understand what this “weed law” was about. I wanted to invite more brilliant minds to help solve the problem of cannabis and I wanted to prevent communities that were once prosecuted for their proximity to the plant from being left out of the emerging opportunities being created by the plant, because they did not have access, standing or credibility in the rooms where decisions about cannabis laws were being made.

The result of this passion have been among other things, the creation of the National Association of Black Cannabis Lawyers (“NABCL”) an organization of lawyers and advocates who believe that cannabis legislation should be equitable, inclusive and reparative in nature, my entry into higher education, becoming one of the first women to teach cannabis law and policy at multiple ABA accredited law schools and the creation of the GreenBridge Learning Program that teaches attorneys who were not fortunate enough to have a cannabis law class when they attended law school, how to succeed at practicing cannabis law today.

What relevant subjects were discussed in the Rutgers University Certificate for Cannabis Law and Business course, and how do you feel the program not only readied students to work in cannabis but also strengthened their work ethic in this new and exciting industry?

I was fortunate to be included as one of several professors in the Rutgers Cannabis Law and Business certification programs offered at Rutgers Law. There I taught Cannabis History and Social Impact. That was a wonderful experience where I had the chance to teach future cannabis industry professionals many of the legal nuances, caveats and tools that they would need to succeed. I also had an opportunity to instill in them the importance of understanding the history of cannabis prohibition in the United States as well as how that history related to some of the communities they intend to serve.

My proudest moment in that program has been the students who return and tell me how my classes helped them better understand how to reach their desired clients, educate their surrounding community and pour back into the areas surrounding the businesses they had established. As predicted, by understanding the customers that they served and why so many Americans have flocked to cannabis “post-prohibition” many have indicated that they have made intentional decisions that have increased their ability to create a more robust business.

How did it feel to become an instructor at your old alma mater? Was it as much of a full-circle moment as I envision it would be?

In short AMAZING! Telling my mom and dad was probably the best part. I loved being a Scarlet Knight when I attended. Anyone who knows me knows this about me (I was after all a Rutgers Cheerleader—the epitome of loving your school). To be sought after by a school that I have loved for over 30 years was an insane feeling. My first day teaching there was without question one of my proudest career moments.

What are the missions and goals of the National Association of Black Cannabis Lawyers, and how does the organization succeed in those goals? As Executive Director, how would you describe the importance of the organization?

As stated before, the mission of the organization centers around a desire to ensure that as a nation we do not miss this incredible opportunity to simply do better and to live up to being the great nation that we enjoy telling everyone else that we are.

Call me a helplessly optimistic idealist, but I happen to believe that we are capable of being a great nation that offers justice for all. Cannabis is certainly no panacea and is not for everybody by any stretch of the imagination but we are currently building a brand new economic ecosystem with cannabis and we can do the easy thing which is to build this system based on an old blueprint that whether we choose to acknowledge it or not, the facts tell us are riddled with racism, sexism, nepotism, double standards and lack fairness or accountability. Or we could elect to deal with what we know to be true and decide to use our greatest, but most underutilized superpower as a nation, creating opportunities for voices from the many races, religions, genders, socioeconomic levels, educational background, abilities and age.

We are successful at accomplishing our goal of making sure our mission is not left out of conversations about cannabis legalization by being unapologetic about our right to grab our seat at the table. We continue to recruit attorneys from different practice areas to help shape cannabis law and we continue to partner with other advocacy groups to stay current on the pain points of those who may not otherwise have a voice that is being heard. We actively participate in advocacy, speaking and education opportunities, support release and expungement programs and build bridges to keep communication and support open with organizations that care but may not have insight as to how to help make cannabis medicine and cannabis business available to everyone.

For all the reasons already mentioned, I believe that the work we do is incredibly important and I hope that as we grow we can do more.

What subjects in the cannabis industry and law are you teaching at Widener University, and how would you say those topics differ from what you taught at Rutgers? Does the move from New Jersey to Delaware drastically change the subject matter or not so much?

I taught a unit in Cannabis History and Social Impact at Rutgers. Now I teach Cannabis Law & Policy. Although there is some overlap, the course I teach now is far more comprehensive and goes into depth in more areas relevant to the practice of law. Since I shared my responsibilities at Rutgers there may be other instructors that had an opportunity to cover subjects outside of my focus creating a similar overall experience for students. I believe it is the scope of the course which is at the root of the difference rather than the change in venue. I also believe as is the nature of cannabis law at this stage, information and trajectory of course have also changed. Last spring we had not yet arrived at rescheduling and now it has been placed at the horizon. Last spring 38 states had legalized cannabis, today that number is 39. As we ushered in a new administration, with a different set of values and objectives we will likely see additional substantive changes regarding where this cannabis journey will take us. All these things will continue to impact what we teach and how we teach it.

How would a federal rescheduling change your duties as an attorney and the course matter that you teach at Widener? Would courses similar to the ones that you teach become far more prevalent in colleges beyond just the East Coast?

It is very difficult to speak with any certainty as to how a potential rescheduling of cannabis might impact day to day legal practice because there are far too many unknowns. I can say however, that what has been proposed regarding rescheduling would probably not yield the result that most lay people think of when they hear the term. It would not result in legalization on a federal level for instance. Cannabis would continue to be federally illegal under the current proposal. What would most likely change is that a new 4th tier of cannabis “legalization” would be created, meaning that a federally regulated but very narrow pharmaceutical dispensary model would be sanctioned, some restrictions to research would be loosened and a pathway would open for tax relief to currently burdened plant touching businesses. But in and of itself this would not eliminate intoxicating hemp, it would not undo state sanctioned medical or adult use programs and it would not end the underground market.

The already crowded and complex cannabis tapestry would simply get one more player as if someone were to throw a grenade into the hands of a performer who was already juggling swords. Unwinding this very messy scenario would add to the complexity of teaching future lawyers but at this time it is difficult to say how exactly the course would change. The one benefit, provided that schools would not be penalized for teaching a cannabis course under this new model, is that this would probably free more schools to begin to offer cannabis law classes and accept the legitimacy of the industry and those who provide legal services within it.

Thank you for joining us, Natacha! To stay up to date on the National Association of Black Cannabis Lawyers, please follow its informative website.