“I don’t think there is a community that’s more motivated by giving back and by activism than the LGBTQ community,” said Tony Minniti, who owns Camden Apothecary, a cannabis dispensary in Camden, N.J.
This motivation inspired the team at the recreational dispensary to kick off “Get Baked to Give Back,” a promotional fundraiser for William Way LGBT Community Center, a nonprofit organization in Philadelphia that provides social, educational, and cultural programs, as well as support services, to the LGBTQ+ community. The initiative will feature redeemable voucher cards available at participating businesses and organizations across Philadelphia and Camden. When customers present one of these vouchers at Camden Apothecary through Oct. 15, the apothecary will donate 15% of the sale directly to William Way. Current participating businesses and organizations include Cockatoo, Giovanni’s Room, South Street Art Mart and William Way, itself, with more to come.
Camden Apothecary is affiliated with the historic Bell Rexall Pharmacy located just next to the dispensary. The family-owned and operated pharmacy was founded in 1931, when it was named Bell Drug Company, and dispensed cannabis until its sale was prohibited by the federal government in 1937. This makes Camden Apothecary at Bell Pharmacy the only dispensary in the country to sell cannabis both before and after its prohibition.
The Get Baked to Give Back initiative isn’t the first time the pharmacy and dispensary have supported the LGBTQ+ community. Back in 2016, Minniti was exploring new ideas when his roommate—a gay man and his wife’s best friend—asked him about Truvada for PrEP. Minniti was familiar with Truvada as a treatment for HIV, but this was the first time he heard of it being used as a preventative measure. Intrigued, he dug into the research and learned about its success.
This discovery spurred Minniti to develop a telehealth model for the pharmacy. The idea was to make Truvada available, with prescriptions overseen by a physician. For Minniti, PrEP felt revolutionary, especially given his understanding of HIV/AIDS in the 1980s and 1990s, when a diagnosis was often a death sentence. Minniti was passionate about pushing this model forward, recognizing how it could impact lives.
“The whole idea was to take the stigma away — especially for the younger generation,” Minniti said. “[They may not] want to go into a center for STIs or [see an] infectious disease doctor because of being seen [in public]. But if they come to the pharmacy, nobody knows what they’re doing here. They’re just coming to the pharmacy like everybody else. That was sort of the linchpin of it, opening up that access and people not feeling embarrassed to avail themselves of something that is life saving.”
Minniti and his team managed to get the clinic up and running for a while, but it struggled to gain momentum. Just as they began seeing patients and getting the word out, COVID hit, and everything came to a halt. However, the team is hopeful to make it a reality again.
The pharmacy has also supported other LGBTQ+ organizations, such as the Mazzoni Center. For Minniti, supporting the community has always been personal to him, due to having gay friends and even a family member who is going through the process of transitioning.
“It’s always been something that’s been very, very personal to me,” he said. “That’s kind of what the motivation is. It’s something that I just believe in.”
In addition to fundraising and sponsorship efforts, Camden Apothecary also participated in a recent initiative that was “a little bit more fun,” said Minniti. The dispensary’s team hid $3,000 worth of marijuana — in the form of three $1,000 vouchers — in local businesses during Philadelphia’s Pride festivities in June. The end result did not go as planned but the event still went on.
“You had to get the [scavenger hunt] clues from our van that was supposed to be at the parade, but when we got to the parade, the police were not letting us go onto the route to park the van,” Minniti laughed. “The initiative kind of didn’t execute the way we wanted it to, but it was still executed anyway. We’ve got enough [word] out there through online, Instagram and things like that.”
This experience ultimately taught the team about logistical issues, which they hope to remedy before next year’s Pride. They also plan to have a presence during this year’s OURfest, which will be held Oct. 13 in the Gayborhood.
“People participated [in June’s scavenger hunt], and yes, three people did find the three $1,000 vouchers that we put out. So I’m hoping that our next Pride event goes a lot more smoothly now that we have an idea of where it could go off the rails,” Minniti said with a laugh.
Overall, Minniti hopes Camden Apothecary will continue to support the LGBTQ+ community through similar initiatives.
“I always find it kind of cringe worthy, because I feel like some businesses, for one month a year, they go out of their way [to cater to LGBTQ+ audiences] but what do you do the rest of the time?” Minniti asked, noting corporations who only promote LGBTQ+ causes during Pride month. “To me, it’s not a thing that you just do as a marketing ploy one month a year. Your business should be committed all year long. We’ll all have fun in June, but really, it should be a yearlong [celebration].
”For more information on Camden Apothecary, visit camdenapothecary.com.
