"We are here to host a community conversation about the Flora Buffalo Cannabis Campus; we have shared information about the project including a promotional video, and this is really the next step," she said. "We want to make sure that we solicit community input and also give the folks of Buffalo the opportunity to ask us questions about the project because we really do see them as our partners in this process."
"I have my own auto-immune challenges, and one of the things I noticed as soon as I took to the legal market as a cannabis patient in Arizona, is that what I knew about the medicinal value of cannabis was incongruent with what I was seeing at market, in the stores and in media," she said. "My science brain started to come on, and what I realized is that we, as a community, needed to be re-educated around what cannabis actually does."
He also asked the much-asked question regarding public health.
"How many of you know a single person, not just in your life, in the life of anybody you've ever heard of on Earth, who dies from a marijuana overdose?" asked Hare. "You have not heard of a single person, not one, in the history of the known universe, who has died from an overdose of marijuana."
One of the big questions surrounding the campus is its economic impact, and Imani Dawson said they're expecting 500-1,000 jobs to come to Western New York because of it. She also noted why the decision was made to come to Buffalo.
"Buffalo has an amazing legacy of manufacturing, and at our core, Flora Buffalo's vision is, in part, to cultivate and process cannabis health and wellness products, so Buffalo is a great choice," she said. "This is a region with amazing, hardworking people with a history of manufacturing, and we think that bringing this new industry to Buffalo will help be part of the revitalization of the area."
However, there is the all important hurdle of legislation to jump over.
"We know that cannabis legalization is coming, and it is incumbent on us to be prepared so that we can all have a place at the table," said Imani Dawson. "Part of what we are doing in sharing our vision, is to help the people of Buffalo really get prepared for cannabis legalization when it comes. We want Buffalo to be a part of the innovation and to be a leader in this space, and in order to do that, we need to have those conversations now."
She added that Wednesday's meeting was just the first of many similar meetings in the build-up to this project's beginning.