Marley Natural, the official cannabis brand of the late Bob Marley, has partnered with the Minority Cannabis Business Association (MCBA) to launch a social impact initiative called Rise Up. The partnership will fund a series of projects that reflect the reggae star’s vision for an inclusive, compassionate, environmentally responsible community.
A key piece of the initiative will involve helping individuals in Oregon remove past cannabis arrests and convictions from their criminal records. At the Rise Up Expungement Day on Aug. 27, organizers will lead individuals through the process of requesting that the state expunge the convictions. By the end of the event, participants will have filed a motion to set aside non-violent, cannabis-related felony arrests and convictions that occurred in Oregon.
“With Marley as our partner, we are gathering the kind of firepower needed to make a measurable positive impact in communities impacted by the war on drugs,” MCBA Chairman Jesce Horton said in a statement about the new partnership. Civic stewardship by Marley Natural, he added, will help insure that “we don’t just build another industry; we build a better industry.”
Completing all the necessary steps should take less than two hours, and all costs and fees are included. Participants must be 18 or older and have a valid state-issued I.D. or U.S. passport, and only certain offenses qualify. More details are available at on the event’s website.
The two groups developed the Rise Up expungement program as part of both organizations’ shared mission of lifting communities that have been harmed by the social injustices of cannabis prohibition and the war on drugs. A spokesperson for Marley Natural said the company’s commitment “to Jamaica and communities harmed by prohibition, through Rise Up, will continue to grow in scale and scope as we expand our operations globally.”
“Marley Natural operates with a strong social conscience,” the company said, “and we source our products in an environmentally and socially responsible way, as we believe Bob would have wanted.”
Editor’s note: Marley Natural and Leafly are both subsidiaries of Privateer Holdings.
