I’m a Mom of 3 and Founder of a Cannabis Brand; There’s so Much Stigma

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Brett Heyman, founder of Flower by Edie Parker. It has been edited for length and clarity.

I started the lifestyle brand Edie Parker in 2010, and by about 2017, I was ready to expand. We had made a name for ourselves with handbags and home accessories. I considered expanding into shoes or jewelry, but I felt there was already enough of that in the world.

But there was an area of the market I felt was underserved: cannabis and cannabis accessories. I’m from LA, and though I live in New York City now, I go back to California a lot. Every time I went into a dispensary in California, I felt the branding was medicinal, masculine, or minimalist.

There was nothing that felt catered to women, even though I knew from personal experience and talking to other women that cannabis can be great for everything from period cramps to spicing up your sex life, to just unwinding. I started thinking about how Edie Parker could credibly enter the cannabis space.

I wanted to create artful cannabis accessories

Edie Parker is a brand born out of a good time. We’re irreverent and whimsical. My approach has always been that no one needs what we’re selling, but since it’s something they want, it should be fun and playful. It should make you happy.

That’s how I feel about cannabis, too. Cannabis is magical, and it’s something that should spark joy. There’s a lot of research about medicinal use, but if you just want to get high and watch a movie, that’s fine too.

I decided to launch Edie Parker into the cannabis space with brightly colored accessories like pipes. These were art — something meant to be proudly displayed, not hidden in the back of a drawer. I wanted to take the fear and stigma away from cannabis.

We lost some customers, but gained others

From the start, I underestimated how hard it would be to challenge the conversation around cannabis. I was naive about the headwinds that we’d face as a brand and as an industry.

Some customers would come into the Edie Parker store on Madison Avenue and buy beautiful hand-blown pipes for their adult children. But over time, the people who don’t like cannabis stopped looking. We certainly lost customers, and despite my best efforts, the cohesion between the brand’s cannabis accessories and other products isn’t totally cohesive. At the same time, we tapped into a new market.

Regulatory challenges are a whole different story. Edie Parker isn’t technically a plant-touching company, since we license our intellectual property to other companies. That spares us from some of the more challenging tax codes and legal implications. Still, I worry that if cannabis remains in this limbo — legal in most states but federally illegal — the industry won’t survive.

I’m proud to be part of normalizing cannabis

Today, my kids are 15, 14, and 9. I talk to them about cannabis the way I talk to them about alcohol. That’s the obvious analogy for me. They know I indulge in a legal, responsible way. Still, I don’t pretend there are no risks from cannabis. I tell my kids not to use it until they’re 25 and their brains have stopped developing.

When I got into this business, I underestimated the stigma that still exists around cannabis. At parent-teacher conferences, people will say, “That’s really cool,” when they learn what I do. But then, after The New York Times did a profile on me, my daughter’s friend’s parent said she didn’t like that I worked in cannabis.

Launching a cannabis brand has been incredibly challenging, but it’s been worth it. That’s why I’ve handled the anguish for the last six years. This is a huge potential market that’s just growing. I’m proud that Edie Parker can be part of normalizing cannabis. The more we talk about it without fear, the better.