The Latino Cannabis Alliance in March announced its official launch as a national coalition of U.S.-based Latino cannabis advocacy leaders.
The LCA was established to meet the growing need for organized Latino representation in the cannabis ecosystem. The organization is dedicated to growing Latino political influence in the United States, building bridges across diverse Latino communities and strengthening cross-border collaboration with Latin America.
“Latino leaders have been central in the fight for cannabis legalization across the country, yet our perspectives are too often missing in the rooms where decisions are made unless we knock the doors down ourselves,” said Jessica F. González, president of the Latino Cannabis Alliance, founder of Veridis Quo LLC and co-founder of the Rudick Law Group. “We launched the alliance to ensure the Latino community is respected for the power we bring to every table we sit at, and that our priorities are fully reflected in the cannabis reform landscape.”
Collectively, LCA leadership has spent decades working at the intersection of cannabis reform and community impact, from grassroots activism and coalition-building to drafting and shaping policy equity frameworks, advising elected officials and government agencies, leading national advocacy campaigns, producing research on market structure and consolidation and building public education initiatives that expand access and opportunity.
The organization’s leadership includes: Jessica F. González, attorney at Rudick Law Group and founder of Veridis Quo; Jason Ortiz, director of strategic initiatives at Last Prisoner Project; Ruth Jazmin Aguiar, CEO of Creatrix Management Group; JM Balbuena, founder and CEO of Synergy Studios and executive director of Ryan’s Law Foundation; Maritza Perez Medina, director of federal affairs at Drug Policy Alliance; Ishaq Ali, policy research analyst at UC Berkeley Cannabis Research Center and program director of ECCO; and Gaby Collantes, director of client strategy for Gold Standard and founder of Cannsulting Agency.
“Latinos are the largest minority group in the U.S. and we fully intend on leveraging our vast people power toward sustained political action to reform cannabis laws, ensure our share of economic opportunity, and directly resist any attempt to demonize or minimize our contributions to the cannabis space or the U.S. at large,” Ortiz said.
“Policy moves when people move, and people move when they see themselves in the story,” Balbuena said. “We are placing storytelling at the center of our strategy because cannabis reform is ultimately a human movement. Through community-driven storytelling we will amplify voices that have been ignored, and build cultural power that drives policy, access and equity.”
