Seeing the Forest For the Trees: The Big and Bigger Problem of Cultural Appropriation in Legal Cannabis

By Lauren Yoshiko

Much like the terms “feminism” and “microaggression,” cultural appropriation comes up so casually in conversation now that its meaning — and its consequences — can get lost in the noise. 

Stripped down to the most literal sense, cultural appropriation is the adoption of select elements from another culture other than one’s own, without the consent of people who belong to that culture. More pointedly, when members of a dominant culture adopt bits and pieces of a separate minority culture without understanding of the historical and experiential context.

While choosing whether or not to buy a feathered headdress for your Coachella look is a pretty straightforward scenario, cultural appropriation can take a decidedly more sinister turn when businesses build a brand by appropriating aspects from real cultures other than their own, for no reason other than branding and market appeal. And when it comes to cannabis, all those lines get a little more blurry and can be a lot more destructive.

Take, for example, Tokyo Smoke.

The Canadian dispensary chain set out to become the “Starbucks of cannabis,” and now boasts over a dozen stores in multiple territories. It’s well known for its aesthetically beautiful approach to cannabis-related retail, and Condé Nast called it the “Muji of Marijuana” when the first full service shop opened in downtown Toronto in 2017. However, save for a stint the founder, Canadian Alan Gertner, spent in Japan as a palate-cleanse after six years working at Google, there is no connection between Tokyo Smoke and the people and culture of Japan.

With the exception of a Tsubota Pearl lighter stocked at most high end dispensaries on the continent, there aren’t Japanese-made goods for sale in the accessories section. The retail spaces and products were designed by elite Toronto firms. There aren’t any Japanese people on the board or in the C-suite. On the brand’s website, there’s nothing to be found about even design inspiration coming from Japan. But there is a lot of talk of how TS is changing the perception of cannabis, winning lots of branding awards, and growing every year.

There aren’t any Japanese people on the board or in the C-suite. On the brand’s website, there’s nothing to be found about even design inspiration coming from Japan. But there is a lot of talk of how TS is changing the perception of cannabis, winning lots of branding awards, and growing every year.

That is the heart of the problem with cultural appropriation: Tokyo Smoke uses a Japanese city as a way to elevate their brand by association, employing the beautiful, refined, well-designed associations we have with Japanese aesthetics without any authentic relationship to the Japanese people and culture. Japanese people don’t get credit or benefit. Only Gertner does. But unlike real Japanese people, Gertner has never experienced racism or discrimination for being Japanese. Gertner’s family members weren’t imprisoned in the incarceration camps for Japanese-Canadians during World War II, nor were they faced with the question of altering their physical appearance to survive anti-Japanese sentiment. Gertner benefits from white privilege and profits off of cherry-picking elements from an entire culture for brand aesthetics. There are probably some customers who, seeing Tokyo Smoke on the street, chose to shop there because they thought they were supporting a Japanese-Canadian-owned store. 

Gertner benefits from white privilege and profits off of cherry-picking elements from an entire culture for brand aesthetics. There are probably some customers who, seeing Tokyo Smoke on the street, chose to shop there because they thought they were supporting a Japanese-Canadian-owned store.

It adds insult to injury to use the creative community’s fascination with Japan to market weed — a substance still so harshly regulated there. Has Gertner provided financial or grassroots support to cannabis law reform in Japan with the money he’s making using Japanese culture to sell weed? I wish I could verify, but Gertner did not respond when I reached out for comment. 

Although Tokyo Smoke may be the elephant-in-the-room during any conversation around cultural appropriation, and even general corporatization, in New Cannabis, to spend time picking apart individual companies thriving in the legal cannabis industry is missing the bigger picture.

“Brands are made up of people. They should be held accountable when they’re stealing from a culture that isn’t their own for their benefit financially or otherwise,” says Tiara Darnell, freelance journalist and creator of the “potcast,” High, Good People. “That said, I think it’s short-sighted to look at one or two brands and point them out as problematic when they exist in a world where cultural appropriation is rampant from individual to organizational choices.”

Darnell, who served as the former chair of the City of Portland’s Cannabis Policy Oversight Committee, points out that just looking at the cannabis world at large, post state-specific legalization, “the entire legal cannabis system as it exists is cultural appropriation.”

“Equity programs are a joke; they largely have no backbones,” says Darnell. “Look at the numbers when it comes to who has access and who can afford to thrive or to fail. Look who is still in jail or has a record that’s got their life in a chokehold. In legal to basically decriminalized states, look at the rates of who is still being arrested despite cannabis being legal. Look at who is predominately centered in the cannabis media landscape in the stories and behind them, particularly at the editorial levels.”

Look at the numbers when it comes to who has access and who can afford to thrive or to fail. Look who is still in jail or has a record that’s got their life in a chokehold. In legal to basically decriminalized states, look at the rates of who is still being arrested despite cannabis being legal. Look at who is predominately centered in the cannabis media landscape in the stories and behind them, particularly at the editorial levels.

-Tiara Darnell former chair of City of Portland’s Cannabis Policy Oversight Committee and creator of ‘potcast’ High, Good People

Cultural appropriation is bigger than cancelling white growers with dreadlocks. It’s bigger than white-owned dispensaries playing hip hop in reception, and certainly bigger than Alan Gertner’s Japan fetish. Yes, businesses must serve, profit, and prioritize the interests of the communities by whom they’re inspired. But individually, each and every one of us making a living in legal cannabis has a grave responsibility to actively support the communities still suffering from the effects of cannabis prohibition. 

Cultural appropriation is bigger than cancelling white growers with dreadlocks. It’s bigger than white-owned dispensaries playing hip hop in reception, and certainly bigger than Alan Gertner’s Japan fetish.

“As long as injustices and inconsistencies persist,” says Darnell, “the culture that’s thriving now is thriving at the expense of the culture that was criminalized before it.”

Photographer: Kue @general_qu

Model: Tim Blanchard @timothy.bee/