GÜD Essence CEO Jasmine Johnson has been building a Black woman-led cannabis company in Florida since 2016. In an exclusive interview with High Times, she breaks down what equity in this market actually looks like in practice, and what it has cost her to find out.
“I’ve been involved in this process since 2016,” says Jasmine Johnson.
She says it the way people say things they have had to make peace with. Not bitterly. Not defeated. Just clearly, the way you state a fact that has become so familiar it no longer surprises you.
Johnson is the CEO of GÜD Essence, a Black woman-led cannabis company and one of the few in Florida positioned to operate as a licensed MMTC. A Miami native, she launched her first business at 18, co-founded Crescendo Jazz & Blues Lounge, a South Florida cultural institution that hosted more than 300 events, and has managed over $200 million in assets across cannabis, real estate and hospitality. She holds degrees from Florida A&M University and Florida International University and has built research partnerships with universities alongside her dispensary infrastructure.
None of that made Florida’s system easier.
Nearly a decade in, she has one operational dispensary in Clearwater, more locations in development, a cultivation and processing campus under construction and a purchase agreement tied to a notice of intent to award a license, with certain components still pending regulatory approval. Along the way: a 750-page application, a $150,000 filing fee, a two-year wait and no award. A key partner who withdrew just before an ownership change submission. Court rulings that kept extending already extended timelines.
“The average entrepreneur cannot sustain a decade-long timeline based on uncertainty,” she tells High Times.
“The average entrepreneur cannot sustain a decade-long timeline based on uncertainty.”Jasmine Johnson, CEO of GÜD …
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Author: Javier Hasse / High Times
