New Jersey’s First Black Woman-Owned Dispensary Opens This Week

New Jersey’s first Black woman-owned retail cannabis dispensary opens this week in Waterford. The dispensary, Holistic Solutions, is owned by Suzan Nickelson, who was the first Black woman to majority own and operate a medical cannabis dispensary in the state. 

Nickelson is also the first woman to own a cannabis license in the Garden State.   

“Like the women who raised me, I believe cannabis is a plant of reverence and spirituality that has been given to people to heal – however intentional stigmatization led to what we went through in the War on Drugs that disproportionately hurt entire communities of Black and brown people. This is what fueled me to work relentlessly to open the doors of Holistic Solutions. The women in my family passed down generational knowledge of working with various herbs for healing and spirituality to me, and I look forward to using that knowledge to run my own cannabis business so others can understand just how powerful this plant can be in a pursuit of wellness and healing.” — Nickelson in a press release 

Nickelson also runs Ital Daughters LLC, a cannabis and hemp consulting company that specializes in assisting minorities, women, and veterans in addition to local municipalities and stakeholders in understanding compliance and regulatory aspects of the industry. 

Holistic Solutions is partnered with Eastbound Collective, which serves as a minority partner, and was founded by Patrik Jonsson last April.  

“I am delighted to support Holistic Solutions on this important project. While there is now a large number of conditional cannabis licenses in NJ, there is a very limited number of operators with the funding, site control, and experience to capitalize on having a license,” Jonsson said in a statement. “Our team does. This does not only ensure that we can follow through with our commitments, but we can open quickly and provide tax revenue to the Township in 2023.”