Dr. Alyza Brevard-Rodriguez on Healing, Leadership, and Reimagining Cannabis Culture
In an industry still defining itself, few leaders embody purpose, resilience, and principled innovation like Dr. Alyza Brevard-Rodriguez, Co-founder of The Other Side Dispensary (TOSD) in Jersey City, New Jersey. A United States Navy veteran, professor, entrepreneur, and cultural architect, Dr. Brevard-Rodriguez has emerged as one of the most intentional voices in cannabis—building spaces rooted in healing, representation, and community.
As the only all minority funded, owned, and led dispensary in the country, The Other Side is more than a retail store; it’s a cultural statement. And behind it is a woman who has refused to let adversity silence her mission. After surviving a devastating accident just one day before her dispensary’s one-year anniversary, Dr. Brevard-Rodriguez is navigating a profound recovery while continuing to lead, educate, and expand her impact through her podcasts, Coffee & Cannabis and Flowers & Tea.
In this candid conversation, she opens up about her journey, her healing, and the responsibility she feels to create spaces where underserved communities can truly thrive.
Q&A with Dr. Alyza Brevard-Rodriguez, Co-founder of The Other Side Dispensary
Q1. For readers who may be new to your story—can you tell us who you are and what inspired your path into the cannabis industry?
My name is Dr. Alyza Brevard-Rodriguez, but many know me as Dr. Beast — a creative multi-hyphen individual most known for my time in the United States Navy serving 2 combat tours, a college professor, a mother, entrepreneur and founder of The Other Side Dispensary in Jersey City along with Coffee & Cannabis and Flowers & Tea podcast. My path into cannabis came from understanding it’s incredible healing power. I had to make peace with my own pain, my own healing journey, and how cannabis became a safe and effective alternative for me when traditional systems failed.
As a veteran, I watched people suffer silently. I watched us medicate trauma with opioids instead of treating it. And I saw people criminalized for the same plant that is now legal and profitable with a brother in the legacy space. The industry needed people who could build with integrity, compassion, and community at the center—not just profit.
So I stepped in to build The Other Side—a dispensary and cultural space that prioritizes education, access, wellness, and real representation as the only all minority funded, owned, and led dispensary in the nation.
Q2. You wear many hats—entrepreneur, advocate, educator, podcast host. How would you describe your mission today?
My mission is to build a cannabis culture rooted in truth, wellness, and community. I noticed that the industry has grown fast, but it has not always been with intention. My purpose here is to make sure that people — especially Black and brown communities, veterans, women and all underserved groups — are not just consumers in this space, but owners, thought leaders, and creators.
Everything I do….whether it’s the podcast, teaching, product development, healing work, store design and/ or working with and educating patients; it is always about empowering people with education and information while creating access to healing and wellness.
Q3. Your journey hasn’t been without challenges. You’ve been open about the accident that changed your life. What happened, and how did it impact you?
In October, one day before my dispensaries 1 year anniversary, I was struck by a speeding vehicle that missed my 18 month old child by a hair. I was nearly struck full-force while trying to protect my son. I broke three bones in my right leg, and overnight I went from running a dispensary and teaching to now being in a wheelchair and relearning basic mobility for the next 6 months ahead.
Personally, it forced me to slow down and face myself and professionally, it is testing everything I built. However, I continue to steer the ship forward as I restructure my life for this new reality. I’m leading without physically being present — and learning how to let my community support me; it’s been a humbling experience to say the least, but I’m grateful that my son and I are both here to see another day.
Q4. What have been some of your biggest takeaways from recovery?
That healing is not linear….at all. That the body will tell the truth your mind tries to outrun, that community is a lifeline, and that sometimes the setback is actually the realignment.
I had to learn gentleness, patience, and self-grace. Those are muscles just like anything else. This has been very hard and I’m only about a month in, but I am confident I will return much stronger and resilient.
Q5. How did that experience shape your perspective on resilience and leadership as a woman of color in cannabis?
As an Afro-Latina woman in cannabis, we’re taught to work twice as hard, be twice as quiet, and carry the weight without complaint. Going through what I’ve gone through made it painfully clear why there are so few women of color who stay in this industry. It's clear the inequities aren’t random, its simply that this structure and system was never built for us to last.
So resilience for me isn’t about pushing through at all costs anymore. It’s about recognizing that if the system doesn’t make room for us, then we build our own rooms, our own tables, our own language, and our own culture around this plant. That’s why I created my own platforms, my own movements, and my own community spaces. I’m not interested in theorizing about equity — I’m actively creating what sustainability looks like for women like me.
Q6. You recently launched a new podcast—tell us about it.
Yes! I host Coffee & Cannabis and now Flowers & Tea—two platforms where we talk about entrepreneurship, wellness, community, womanhood, and cannabis culture beyond the stereotypes.
Coffee & Cannabis is an interview-based show rooted in storytelling, entrepreneurship, and culture. It’s where we sit down with founders, creators, civic leaders, activists, and community builders—and we talk about the real journey behind their success. Not the highlight reel, but the lessons, the missteps, the pivots, the rebuilds, the healing, the joy, the growth, and the grit.
We pair disruptive, yet intellectual conversation with the ritual of coffee and cannabis — two things historically used to open minds, slow down time, and create space for truth. The show challenges industry norms, pushes dialogue forward, and spotlights the people shaping cannabis culture — not just participating in it.
Then there’s Flowers & Tea, which has a completely different spirit. This is a roundtable, woman-centered conversation series, filmed in woman-led spaces, highlighting policy, pot, and politics in the cannabis and leadership ecosystems. It features women who are often doing transformational work but don’t always get the microphone. There’s softness, power, strategy, joy, and vulnerability in these conversations. It’s about remembering that women are culture makers and that our stories deserve to be held with care and depth.
So where Coffee & Cannabis is cultured, direct, and disruptively intellectual, Flowers & Tea is communal, restorative, and rooted in women holding space for one another. Both shows are about returning cannabis to its cultural home of community, healing, storytelling, and shared humanity, reform & progress.
Q7. How do you hope your platform supports others going through difficult transitions?
I want my platforms to show people what’s possible. A lot of us were raised to believe there’s only one way to heal, one way to build a career, one way to “be successful.” But that’s just not true. There are alternative wellness practices, alternative lifestyles, alternative paths to purpose — and cannabis has played a powerful role in discovering that for so many of us.
By sharing the stories of people who have chosen the plant in some form — as patients, entrepreneurs, creatives, caregivers, healers, activists — I want people to see themselves represented in real, everyday leaders and innovators.
These conversations are meant to:
Break stigma
Educate with real lived experience
Provide actual game, not gatekeeping
And remind people they are allowed to choose themselves
As a veteran and a professional, I am intentional about showing that cannabis is not counter to discipline, success, or leadership. It can actually restore people back to themselves. It changed how I healed, how I parent, how I lead, and how I live.
Q8. Looking at the cannabis industry today, what conversations are most urgent?
We need to stop treating equity like a press release and start treating it like policy, capital, and accountability.
Right now, we have an industry where federal law is still treating cannabis like a crime, while states are treating it like a cash grab. Until we get reform at the federal level, including ending 280E, creating fair banking access, and actually descheduling the plant… small operators will always be at a disadvantage.
And when states flip from medical to adult-use, there has to be a sustainable plan in place. You can’t call people from underserved communities into this industry and then not give them capital, resources, or structural support. Equity requires money — grants, low-interest loans, and business development support that is actually accessible. Not performative programming, not photo ops....REAL investment.
Municipalities also have to stop treating cannabis like a local ATM. Local governments cannot keep taxing, delaying, and gatekeeping small entrepreneurs and then celebrating “diversity” when only wealthy multi-state operators can survive. It’s not honest, and it’s not equitable. We need relief from 280E, banking reform, and a real commitment to correcting decades of harm.
Q9. What advice would you give to other entrepreneurs—especially women and people of color?
Move with purpose, not pace and don’t let the industry rush you. I pride myself on staying in my own lane and following my own formula. Build your foundation and stick with your values, ethics, and purpose.
Also, document your journey. Your lived experience is a strategic asset.
Q10. What’s next for you?
Right now, I’m in a season of rebuilding; my mind, my body, my brand and most of all strengthening my spirit. This injury forced me to slow down, but it didn’t stop the mission. I’m home recovering, reconnecting with my kids, strengthening my community ties, and getting really intentional about the work I want to pour into the world moving forward.
On the business side, I have several launches I’m excited about. I’m working on the rollout of our collaboration with King Palm as we introduce a new product in the NJ market, bringing a natural, slow-burning, quality product that reflects true quality and wellness. I’m also preparing the launch of Flowers & Tea podcast, a woman-centered roundtable show sponsored by Ascend that highlights sisterhood, leadership, politics and policy in a way we don’t often get to see in cannabis.
I’m also continuing to grow my personal brand, Beast Anatomy — using this recovery period as a real-time journey of transformation. I believe in alchemizing pain into purpose, and I want people to witness what that looks like, not just hear about it after the fact.
Despite the challenges — in the market and in my own body — I have some beautiful rollouts closing out this year and I’m excited for what 2026 is going to bring. This chapter is about alignment, legacy, and building from a place of wellness and intention.
Closing Reflections
Dr. Alyza Brevard-Rodriguez is redefining what sustainable leadership looks like in cannabis—not through perfection or performance, but through honesty, intention, and lived experience. Her story is one of transformation: from combat veteran to educator, from entrepreneur to community builder, from survivor to storyteller. Whether through The Other Side Dispensary or her growing media platforms, she is carving out spaces where truth and wellness coexist, and where women, veterans, and communities of color can see themselves not only represented, but centered.
As she continues her recovery and prepares for new launches, partnerships, and the rollout of Flowers & Tea, Dr. Brevard-Rodriguez stands as a reminder that healing and leadership are not opposing forces—they are parallel paths. And in choosing to walk both, she is helping reshape the cultural and structural future of cannabis.
Her next chapter is unfolding in real time, with intention, clarity, and purpose. And if this moment is any indication, Dr. Alyza Brevard-Rodriguez is just getting started.