‘Kiss My Grass’ shines light on barriers Black women face in Michigan cannabis

DETROIT—Some films entertain you. Others make you sit in uncomfortable truth.

Kiss My Grass does both.

Co-directed by Detroit native Mary Pryor, this short documentary—which premiered last month at the Shadow Gallery—manages to do what few films about weed ever pull off: It gets real.

Over the course of 23 minutes, Kiss My Grass rips back the curtain on the steep uphill battle that Black women face while trying to build and fund cannabis businesses in Michigan and beyond. It centers Black women in their own words. It’s sharp, soulful, and unflinchingly honest.

And it’s easily one of the most important cannabis documentaries ever made in Michigan.

The cost of entry 

Kiss My Grass isn’t flashy. It doesn’t need to be.

Instead, Pryor and co-directors Mara Whitehead and Tirsa Hackshaw give the floor to the Black women actually doing the work behind the scenes—the founders, growers, and entrepreneurs who are clawing for access in an industry that was never built with them in mind.

Black entrepreneurs reportedly account for less than 2% of all cannabis businesses nationwide.

For Black women, the odds are even worse. The film lays out the reality: wealth inequality, red tape, and discrimination that blocks access to startup capital before ideas can even take root.

The broader stats are brutal. For every dollar owned by a never-married white man, a never-married Black woman owns just eight cents. Black women also have 90% less wealth than white men—thanks to gaps in pay, access to education, home ownership, and credit. 

Pryor doesn’t need to spell it out. The on-camera interviews say it all.

Truth hits home

Kiss My Grass isn’t just a documentary. It’s a mirror held up to the American weed industry, showing how easily the promise of legalization can still leave people behind. 

The featured stories are deeply personal, but they also speak to something bigger: a nation that’s actively profiting from the same plant that once put their fathers and brothers in prison.

And because Pryor’s own father was affected by the war on drugs, the film hits with extra weight. She wanted, as she said, to uncover a “deeper uncomfortable truth” about the government’s mentality toward cannabis and the people still trying to right those wrongs.

“We’re just getting into the weeds of what it is to be marginalized triple time in this space, with chronic health items, and with being Black, and being a woman, and coming from the descendants of the drug war,” Pryor told Deadline after the the Tribeca Film Festival premiere.

Representation matters

In Detroit, Pryor said she was intentional about every voice that made it on screen. 

“I didn’t want anyone to look crazy,” she said—meaning no stereotypes, no trauma-porn editing, and no tokenism. She deliberately sought out a diverse mix of Black women from Detroit and beyond, even avoiding the “light-skinned” curation that so often dominates mainstream media.

She also cut any scenes that felt too raw or emotional, not to hide pain, but to protect the dignity of the women sharing it. The result: Kiss My Grass doesn’t exploit its subjects; it elevates them.

And that tone carries through in the film’s narration from actress and activist Rosario Dawson, who also executive produced the project alongside Pryor and ex-NFL star Colin Kaepernick.

In an interview with Deadline, Dawson praised “the bravery and courage” of the women who shared their stories, calling Pryor’s work “risky and necessary” because it challenges viewers to look beyond the success stories and see the inequity baked into the cannabis industry.

What makes Kiss My Grass even more special is that it’s not some slick, corporate-funded production. It’s a real labor of love that almost didn’t happen, Pryor explained.  

At the Shadow Gallery, Pryor said the project’s original $1.5 million budget dwindled to just $150,000 by the time cameras rolled. Filming stretched over three years. Finding funding was a grind. But she kept pushing, fueled by the conviction that these stories needed to be told.

The bottom line 

Kiss My Grass is short, but it lingers. It’s not the kind of film you forget after the credits roll. It’s the kind you sit with, that makes you want to do something. For me, that means using this space to amplify Pryor’s message and encourage every Michigander to seek out the film when it hits streaming this winter. Follow @kissmygrassdoc on Instagram for updates on future screenings.

READ MORE: 5 quick hits of cannabis news from across Michigan

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