Domenique Harmon: I love cannabis. Cannabis is such a great introduction to community. I mean, that culture is all about sharing and I feel like that’s slowly getting away from us as it’s being capitalized. So it’s a sense of healing and coming together when I think about the union’s involvement in the cannabis industry, it’s like pulling us up from the water now.
Veena Hampapur: From the UCLA Labor Center, this is Re:Work. I’m Veena Hampapur. My co-host today is Madison Hernandez, one of the co-authors of the first-ever cannabis worker study at the UCLA Labor Center. And she’s a former cannabis worker herself.
Madison Hernandez: Hi Veena! I’m super excited to be here with you and talk about cannabis worker labor in California.
Veena Hampapur: In today’s episode, we speak with Domenique Harmon. Domenique has a passion for healing, which ties into her working in both the cannabis industry and mental health spaces. Please take note, this episode contains references to child abuse, suicide, and war.
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You know Madison, I was thinking about when we were doing the interview for this episode and after I read the cannabis report that you worked on, you know, it’s pretty clear that a lot needs to be addressed, a lot needs to be improved in the cannabis industry. But what also stood out to me is the love that workers have for the plant as well as the communities that they’re fostering and connecting with through cannabis. That’s just something I hadn’t thought about. You know, you see all these shops popping up in LA and you know, you notice the people working in the shops, you notice the security outside of the shops, and I thought like okay, you know, here are people at their job, but I hadn’t thought about it more than that.
Madison Hernandez: I’m so excited for people to realize what you’re realizing with cannabis as like the cannabis industry continues to change and evolve. We have to make sure the community stays at the focus because it is what made it become in the first place. Domenique’s story is a really amazing reflection of that. If we had more people like her in the industry, then we can start repairing the harms. And I love that we got to interview her, because like what people will hear from her, a lot of people are going to relate. I’m excited!
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Madison Hernandez: Since childhood, music has played an important role in Domenique’s life.
Domenique Harmon: It was a very young age, I wanna say, is when I found this connection with music. And it’s like listening to the Temptations, I really loved that old sound as a kid. I grew up mostly on like soul, jazz, even some gospel, R&B. I did like have a stunt with like NSYNC, Britney Spears, like that whole era. I was all over it. Spice Girls was my favorite to listen to. When I went 10th and 11th grade to the East Coast like the whole scene there was different. I just fell in love with hip hop and classic rock. A lot of music got me through my childhood. I would always have blank tapes, and I would be listening to the radio and I would record music from the radio. Eventually when I went to high school, it was CDs and I met a friend who used to burn CDs and so I would pay like $2 for the newest music coming out.
Madison Hernandez: Through music Domenique found solace and connection.
Domenique Harmon: I’ve had very adverse childhood experiences. There’s a little bit of trauma there that’s just me being molested when I was three, not finding out until I was about 30-years-old. I think you lose some of yourself, or my brain covered up so much of it where I don’t even remember. It doesn’t matter like how much our brain forgets. Our body remembers everything. And so movement and dance like as a kid for me was everything, and that was closely connected with music. I’m finding myself in that music, just connecting to myself over and over again or trying to make these attempts to find myself.
Veena Hampapur: Domenique’s mom was concerned about their safety. And that’s why she and Domenique constantly moved around.
Domenique Harmon: My dad was very abusive to my mother. One night my mom just kind of had the courage to leave and so she was moving around a lot, because she was just not wanting my dad to find her. I don’t think I really knew what was going on. I just knew we were moving, and I was always the new girl, and I was really tired of it.
Veena Hampapur: Domenique graduates from high school and a year after that, she decides to join the military.
Domenique Harmon: I was talking to my grandfather, who was an Air Force veteran, about having a tough time with working two jobs, going to school, trying to figure out what I want to do and not wanting to be at home because my stepdad was coming back from Virginia with my mom. You know, he’s like, well you know there’s the military. I deployed to Iraq during Red Zone 2007. My job was to write up letters allowing people from the outside to come onto base and so people already on base would submit paperwork and list out the products or things that they want to bring onto base. And a lot of the time it was like food, because we had a lot of workers on base from different countries, I want to say all over the world.
Madison Hernandez: Domenique also helped care for people in the hospital.
Domenique Harmon: There was this like split screen, right, is how I see it when I think about the memories there. And it’s, one is like taking care of people in the hospital who had come in because they were suicide bombers. It’s this split screen of that, of a lot of blood and trying to mop up blood that never goes anywhere. And then this other screen of after I gave the approval for people from all over the world to come on base, they would come and invite my whole unit to dinner. Some of my favorite memories being deployed is going to these big tents of different cultures of people, eating different types of foods. So like, the way that they do it is like they’ll bring out courses. It’s like you’re sitting at a fancy restaurant but really you’re in the middle of the dessert. Going into the tent you kind of forgot where you were and everything became about food. And not everybody spoke English or the same language, but we understood this culture of eating.
Veena Hampapur: Eventually Domenique decides the military isn’t the right path for her.
Domenique Harmon: I just – I didn’t like war, what it stood for, what I was supposed to do. If a gun was pointed at me, what if a kid was pointing a gun with me? I’ve always just said I would just let the kid kill me honestly. So you have all these thoughts when you’re deployed, and I was just like I have to get out. One of the programs that came up when I was deployed was called the Palace Chase Program, where as long as you did half of your time in the military, you can get out and go to school, and then join the Reserves basically. As I’m doing this whole process everyone’s just like trying to convince me to stay in, and you get a guaranteed check, like all these things that to me wasn’t worth it. It wasn’t worth like my freedom. It wasn’t worth my life.
Madison Hernandez: Domenique planned to work in public health but eventually found herself zoning in on mental health more and more.
Domenique Harmon: I kept running into a brick wall in getting a public health position, because a lot of people wanted a degree. And I wanted to focus on something I couldn’t stop thinking about, and that was getting into mental health. My dad took his own life when I was 12, and so since then I feel like I’ve been on a curiosity, spiritual, element of myself always asking people why do they do the things that they do. And I think about my dad, and I think about people in the military that I’ve lost.
Veena Hampapur: Domenique was clear at this point that she wanted to work in the mental health space but found herself facing some personal challenges.
Domenique Harmon: I put myself on time out and moved to Vegas. I’m thinking about how I can start this mental health business and what needs to happen. And I was like, you know what, I’m tired of talking about it. Let me just do it. One of the workers that night was being very nice at Burger King. He just like brought us our food to the table like we were at a restaurant. The place was empty, okay. I stopped him and I was like can I ask you a few questions. He was like yeah, sure. He was very open. One of the questions was how has suicide affected you either directly or indirectly. He was like, wow, there was someone here just yesterday who committed suicide in the bathroom that they were completely unaware of. He went into like how that has affected him.
Veena Hampapur: So after this experience, Domenique begins talking to more people and asking them about their stories.
Domenique Harmon: People would thank me. And to me that told me I was on the right track because as soon as we talk to someone and tell them some of the hardships that we’ve gone through or what not I think people feel a lot less alone and a lot of the stigma and shame is lessened. I continue to collect stories and figure out how do I want to make this a business or a non-profit.
Madison Hernandez: I feel like this is the perfect tangent into talking about Domenique’s experience in the cannabis industry. I see a parallel between Domenique asking these vulnerable questions, and what cannabis workers do, in connecting with and trying to help their patients. For her to have that genuine inquiry about people and their well being, I would love for her to have been my budtender.
Domenique Harmon: I started off with trapping. And that was working for someone that worked out of their home. I had to stop doing that because it would put myself in danger in different ways. It was just not done properly. A job came up with a legal unionized shop, and this blew my world. I was just like what? Not only are we legal but we’re union and we have a say so in our benefits and our rights? Patients would come in, we would educate them about cannabis and different ways of medicating.
Veena Hampapur: When you’re thinking about sales and retail, cannabis work really stands out and this is because it can feel a lot more intimate, and more about trying to help people with their health and their wellbeing.
Madison Hernandez: Cannabis workers are doing such important work not just to peddle this product but to instill that information in people that they are allowed to ask for what they want in healthcare settings, that they can get something that also feels good, that they can get something that tastes good, however they want to consume it. And yet so many workers still want to learn more. Just like how so much the ocean is unexplored, so many cannabis workers are attracted to the untapped work in cannabis.
Veena Hampapur: Something else that stands out about the cannabis industry is that unions have been a part of it since the start. So this explains why union rates are really high.
Madison Hernandez: That’s right Veena! 20% of cannabis workers are unionized and unionized workers are way more likely to receive raises, get health insurance, and speak up about workplace issues. And as great as that is, as high as union representation is, so is the rate of wage theft. Workers also struggle with violence, harassment, and being excluded from upward mobility or growing in their profession.
Veena Hampapur: Domenique eventually found herself working for a union, through the Spur program.
Domenique Harmon: With the Spur program, you would leave your home store for a year and get paid as a union representative advocating for the union at different shops. This is a complex job, but very rewarding just because I’m naturally just – I’m the girl at the protest type of thing. Fighting for worker’s rights was very important, especially with the history that I’ve had working at trap shops and what that looks like and what that does to people. I was able to check the workers to see if there was anything that they wanted to report, wanted to work on, and so that was one part of the job. Another part was during the time, it was COVID that I was working with the union, that was UFCW, every time someone opened up a shop in a city that cannabis is regulated and legalized, they have to agree to an LPA, which is a Labor Peace Agreement, making it okay for the union to come in and provide information to workers regarding being part of the union. Our job then was the shops that weren’t unionized to be able to go and advocate for the workers. We would just let them know about the benefits of being a union, like getting vacation time, paid time off, regular raises, things that you don’t normally see in trap shops or in illegal shops. And so people who are in the cannabis industry were very surprised that that was something that even existed. Then we would just take a vote of who would be interested in the union, and if there was a majority vote, we would go ahead and start the process of signing them up and working on contracts. And so I would help with the negotiations and being in those meetings in order to help advocate for that. And so my role as a Spur and any Spur is important because we have the experience most of the time of working in illegal shops and then going to legal shops. We know what it’s like and we know all the benefits that the union provides. And so it was easy to talk to people and have them have a relationship with us versus maybe the union reps themselves who haven’t really been in the industry but get all the education from us.
Veena Hampapur: The union was beneficial to cannabis business owners as well.
Domenique Harmon: You can’t have cannabis regulated and legalized in cities without the union and without council members. One of my other jobs was to go and speak to council members in different cities in order to legalize and regulate cannabis. Of course you have fight back from local mothers mostly just saying that this is a gateway drug but then we would have people like cannabis workers and even customers come in and speak at these council meetings to give a different perspective. So once a city regulates and legalizes cannabis because of the efforts of the union, shops are able to open.
Madison Hernandez: I love how much of an organizer Domenique is. And I feel like it only makes sense given her path of speaking on vulnerability.
Domenique Harmon: Cannabis comes from such a toxic childhood, right, we could say. And still coming out of that, I feel like the cannabis industry is still in its adolescence. Like, it has no rules. There’s so many ways for it to be legalized now and shared and made money from. And a lot of cannabis workers don’t think they have any rights because of their childhood trauma with cannabis, right? I hope this is making sense and so being part of the union, it’s like, you know, going to college and somebody’s like you have the right to choose the path you want to go on and you have a say in how you want to live your life. And knowing you can be cannabis that has been so restricted and put down for so many years, and people still in jail for cannabis. Now you have a right to change that. The union is changing the way that we look at cannabis, the industry and their workers. People used to think of cannabis workers as like on the low end, you know? But now it’s like, oh we’re a union, we make a living wage. Yes, we’re still creative. It’s all suppressed feelings that are coming up for us, and now we’re being able to express that in all these types of ways, and the most important way is the right to be able to dictate what your benefits are as far as what type of leave you want, how much money you want to make, you know, can we be at a living wage in our contracts with the union, can we actually make this a career and not just this like capitalized, like a franchise. And so being able to speak to workers, you could see the healing that happens with the industry.
Madison Hernandez: Domenique eventually took a break from the union and went to Bali for 8 months.
Domenique Harmon: I was getting away from what I really wanted to do in this life, and that was this mental health business. And so Bali allowed me some time to be able to slow all the way down. When I was there, I was just connecting with other people in the healing space and it really just solidified where I wanted to go.
Veena Hampapur: After she got back from Bali, Domenique was surprised to discover that working in cannabis just wasn’t the same.
Domenique Harmon: The owner turned what could have been so beautifully done with the union into a huge capitalistic warfare within his community of workers. So people haven’t gotten raises in two years if you’re low on sales, if you’re front desk. We asked for so many different negotiations that I think are reasonable but have still been denied. I’m hoping that any other future cities that he would like to open up a cannabis shop will second guess opening up a shop with him. If you’re promising city council members that your workers are being treated fairly but then turn around and not give us raises just so that you can open up more stores, I think is very contradictory and a slap in the face to the union and everyone that works for him.
Madison Hernandez: Domenique is so passionate about workers rights and the cannabis industry’s potential. I see her operating so much of systems of liberation. And what drives you girl? What drives you to do all of that for cannabis? I know that for myself, and what I heard through Domenique’s story, was that we go so hard for the plant because it has given us so much. It gets to me when people have to kind of like have a wall up about loving cannabis. Whether that’s because of the institutional or sociological elements in their lives that make it so that they have to be in the green closet, I love how Domenique is so out, so so out. And it’s a place of love to want to be out despite the systems of oppression against us.
Domenique Harmon: I love cannabis. I’m not ashamed of it. I don’t hide it. My whole family and friends and community know what I’m about. I love the sharing and community aspect of cannabis. I love the healing aspects of cannabis. And it’s brought me so much joy, so much healing myself. And you start to see cannabis on a different level where oh, this is really helping this 70 year old grandma like sleep at night who has arthritis pain or oh, this is a great way for someone to sit down and be creative and express themself if they have like suppressed thoughts and memories. And you start to see the different ways as you talk more and more people about cannabis and why they do it and you start to really open your eyes about how cannabis has really changed people’s lives and they’re happier, their mood has changed, they could go through a whole gathering at a friend’s house without having tremors. And yeah, you start to really fall deeper in love with the plant and what it does and then I started to get really sciencey and you know how the different strains of the terpenes. And so you could kind of get lost in the world and then also uplifted in the world of cannabis because there’s so many benefits and unresearched things that we still don’t know about it. So yeah, definitely a cannabis fanatic.
Madison Hernandez: Domenique’s mental health journey eventually brought her to Lightning in a Bottle, which she describes as an arts, music, and healing festival.
Domenique Harmon: Me wanting to get into this mental health space and having like filling like holes in my story or like I started asking a lot of questions and it accidentally came out to me about what happened in my childhood, and so I kind of went deeper into that healing and what that is. So, when I think about mental health I think of holistic health. I almost say like psycho-spiritual. It’s how you sleep. It’s who is around you, your community. It’s how you heal yourself, what plants are you using, are you using plant medicine, are you using chemical medicine? And so when I’m thinking about mental health it’s just like if my mind is right then I’m going to sleep good. And okay, what does it take for my mind to be right. You know, I need to get outside, I need to meditate. It’s an element of everything is connected and it starts with the mind. I started to heal myself and that brought me to LIB, right, Lighting in a Bottle. And this aspect of my life where I really started to really focus on my healing, my family, my relationships with people, my own mental health, what it means to me. We have different classes about nutrition, about psychedelics, trauma. And there was this one class about childhood trauma and so we go through this assignment of closing our eyes, and going to a space in our childhood where we felt the most hurt. And it’s like what person is showing up, what is in the room that’s making you feel comfort. And in that moment I realized that you know, music was a huge aspect of that. It was like an escapism for me. People expressing so many things vulnerably without any filter in music. And I see music, even til this day, as this healing aspect of not only like the artist but to the audience, because whatever experience they’re sharing with us, we’re relating to and we feel a little less alone. I don’t know why I’m getting so emotional about this but I cling to it even to this day so much.
Veena Hampapur: Around this time, Domenique started to notice more mental health content online. And she sees a path forward for herself.
Madison Hernandez: Domenique became a content creator and founded the Amazing Movement to inspire people in their healing journey. It focuses on mental health awareness and the power of connection each time someone shares their story.
Domenique Harmon: I said well, okay, all my posts will be geared towards either music or mental health, because that’s who I am. And part of that is also cannabis. And I want to be able to talk about all parts of my healing. The tag line with the Amazing Movement is inspiring your own healing because I’m not saying all things work for all people. Cannabis might not be for everyone, and that’s okay. But I think I attract the people who that does work for. I’m getting my bachelor’s and then hopefully, yeah, the next step will be getting my master’s with a focus with childhood trauma.
Veena Hampapur: This conversation to me is all about healing. And with healing, she’s looking at it on a holistic level, right. And we see different types of healing: healing through music, healing through sharing your story and hearing others’ stories. And then also healing through the union. I’m talking about the impact on both the industry and the workers, right. You know organizing in a union being a form of healing, I had never thought about it in those words but it resonated, it made sense to me. There’s this parallel between Domenique’s own personal healing journey from childhood and this healing through the union and that stood out to me.
Madison Hernandez: Oooh, uh, uh, uh. No, talk about it. Whenever we recognize our worth labor wise, we realize our labor isn’t just like where we’re getting a paycheck. Our labor is everywhere, especially in families. I love that she found healing through the union because it’s only going to translate to her, it’s only going to translate her child, and the communities that she touches.
Veena Hampapur: So you know, I have two young kids at home. And one thing I didn’t realize when becoming a parent is how having kids can bring up your own childhood, your own past. And there’s this whole process, I think, of trying to re-parent yourself as you’re also learning how to parent these young babies. Domenique was already like thinking about this before her baby was even born. You know, when we spoke to her, she was due any minute. I just thought it was really beautiful that part of this healing journey that she was on, was also thinking about how it could lead to a better future for her own child.
Madison Hernandez: She’s going to be an amazing mom, aww.
Domenique Harmon: I’ve never really planned for marriage and kids. I did date mostly women as an adult and I’ve had a few boyfriends here and there. So going into a whole relationship and now having a baby is something – it’s so new, and it’s also – brings up a lot of my childhood naturally, right? I’m just thinking, okay, I’m thinking about daycare even, like do I want to keep my child with a stranger? I don’t want to – it’s like how do we stop these generational curses. And I talk to my partner about this all the time. I’m hoping that what I’m doing now just with all the healing that I’m doing translates – I know it will – translate well to my child. Like we’re just doing all the things to – to put less trauma on our child. Trying to do our best here, and so of course like me starting a mental health business and the things that I’ve been through, the spiritual journey that I’m always on and continuously on that never stops with me. I could only know that it’s just going to be a better home environment than what I’ve grown up in. That’s all I could hope for.
Credits
Veena Hampapur: A special thanks to Domenique Harmon for sharing her story. To learn more about Domenique’s work with the Amazing Movement, visit theamazingmovement.com. Or find her on Instagram @theamazingmovement. Many thanks to UFCW for connecting us with Domenique.
Madison Hernandez: To read the UCLA Labor Center’s report on cannabis workers, please visit labor.ucla.edu. Or see our show notes for the direct link.
Veena Hampapur: You’re listening to Re:Work, which is a production of the UCLA Labor Center. This episode was produced by Veena Hampapur, Madison Hernandez, and Saba Waheed. Sound design and editing by Veena Hampapur and mixing by Aaron Dalton. The voiceover recording was done at Pink Cloud Studios. And until next time, rethink, rework.