A ‘veteran’ in the war on drugs
“I use cannabis to survive and pay bills,” said Nicolas, a first-generation Haitian American who grew up in Trenton.
“My mom, she had breast cancer [when] I was growing up,” he said. “By the time I was 13, cannabis was the only way of putting food on the table.”
By the time he reached Rowan University, he said, he not only used cannabis for medicinal purposes, he brought a community together. Nicolas claims a lot of athletes on campus came to him during stressful moments like finals.
Around 2019, he noticed that he was being pulled over by police more.
“It wasn’t by normal police,” Nicolas said.”I wasn’t being asked for my ID when I was getting pulled over. It was basically stop and frisk, most of the time.”
He was arrested a couple of times and nearly flunked out of college because he had to choose between a court appearance that fell on the same day as a final.
“I had to explain to my professors who didn’t want me to skip this final on why I had to skip this final, because it was either between my degree or my freedom,” Nicolas said.
Now using his experiences as a positive, Nicolas assembled his team in 2021, the year Murphy signed three bills that legalized recreational marijuana. Prolific Growhouse now has 10 employees, with an average age of 25.
“This group is probably the youngest in the nation, operating a legal cannabis business,” he said. “But everyone here has hustle, and is definitely dedicated towards this company.”
Nicolas said the state is going in the right direction in striving for equity, but the lack of capital is “where the diversity is going to not be the same.”
“People who come from my background, especially from the inner city, [most] don’t have the amount of capital that it takes to start up one of these,” he said. ”I think the state can do a little better; provide more grants, allow the grants that are open for businesses that are non-cannabis to be open for cannabis businesses.”
