Ben & Jerry’s co-founder starts cannabis nonprofit to support social causes

Ben Cohen, co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, has started a new nonprofit business selling cannabis products, with the profits dedicated to social causes.

Ben’s Best Blnz or B3, aims to “sell Great Pot and use the power of our business to Right the Wrongs of the War on Drugs,” according to its website.

The nonprofit’s business strategy involves partnering with for-profit businesses who pay B3 a royalty to use its formulas, packaging and trademarks. 

The entirety of those royalty profits, after expenses, will go towards their social mission: getting people convicted of nonviolent, cannabis-related crimes out of jail, getting their criminal records expunged, advocating for marijuana to be removed from the federal government’s Schedule 1 list, which includes drugs such as heroin, and investing in Black-owned cannabis businesses.

The website breaks down by percentage how the company’s profits will be split, with 80% devoted to grants for Black cannabis entrepreneurs. B3 has also established a low interest loan fund for BIPOC-owned cannabis businesses.

The remainder of the profits will be donated to the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance and the Last Prisoner Project, an organization that works to remove people convicted of cannabis offenses from jail.

“The War on Drugs (first so named by President Richard Nixon) has targeted lower income Black and Brown people thru over policing, discriminatory prosecution, and discriminatory sentencing,” the website reads. “That’s why despite using pot at the same rate, Black people are 4 times more likely to be arrested than Whites.”

In addition to its goal of freeing those convicted of cannabis offenses, B3 is hoping to encourage sustainability by growing cannabis organically and using packaging with minimal plastic.

Ben Cohen will not take a salary from B3, according to the site.