High Notes, Clear Minds

There is a specific kind of silence that happens just before the beat drops; a heavy, expectant pause where the air feels thick with everything, we haven’t said yet. In our communities, that silence often surrounds the plant. It is a silence built from decades of “social and legal context” that didn’t always have our best interests at heart. When we talk about cannabis, we are talking about a lens through which we have been watched, judged, and sometimes, misunderstood.

I sat down recently to process the weight of a new initiative, “High Notes, Clear Minds.” It’s a project born from a partnership between the Institute for Sustainable Health and Social Impact (ISHSI), Hip Hop Healing (HHH) Global, and Kopius Records. As I looked over the editorial direction, I felt that familiar tug, the responsibility of community journalism. It’s the emotional labour of ensuring that when we speak of “harm reduction” and “responsible consumption,” we are speaking to the soul of the person listening.

The project has just received funding from the Ontario Cannabis Store’s (OCS) 2025 Social Impact Fund. There is a delicate dance in acknowledging this power. They recognize the resources provided by the OCS, a central pillar in the province’s landscape, yet we maintain our position as the experts of our own lived experiences. It is a collaborative effort to bridge “knowledge gaps” and “generate shared social value” without losing the heartbeat of the streets in the process.

As Jermaine Henry, the lead for the Community Mental Health Network (CMHN) project, shared with me, there is a “Complex relationship with cannabis use and marginalized communities.” This isn’t something you fix with a brochure. You heal it with a vibration. Over the next twelve months, this initiative will travel to eight cities: from the high-rises of Toronto to the quiet corners of Sudbury and the vibrant pulses of Peel and Durham. We are reaching out to those often left in the shadows of the mainstream narrative: our Black youth, our Afro-Indigenous kin, the Rastafari faithful, and the seasonal workers who keep the wheels turning.

The philosophy here is simple but deep: we are not separate from the environment we navigate. If the system has historically used the plant as a tool for exclusion, we use the rhythm as a tool for reclamation. By grounding the program in Canada’s Lower-Risk Cannabis Use Guidelines, they provide “evidence-informed education,” but they wrap it in the power of music and cultural expression. It’s about meeting our communities where they are.

I think about the 300 participants they expect to reach. I think about the psychological safety required to sit in a workshop and talk about safer consumption methods when, for so long, any mention of the plant felt like a risk. This is the “emotional work” the team does behind the scenes; debating every word in their digital resources and virtual Q&A sessions to ensure they feel like a conversation with a trusted cousin rather than a lecture from an institution.

They are building a portrait of health that is: clear, powerful, and real. It’s a groundbreaking project that looks at the social and legal context as a map we are redrawing together. This is the start of long-term partnerships and sustainable health practices that will outlast any single document. They are finding the high notes, keeping minds clear, and finally, letting the beat drop on a future where we are truly seen.