Mario Williams is the owner of 9 Leaves, an experience designed to help consumers restore the best version of themselves by reducing and eliminating ailments such as anxiety, pain, inflammation, and lack of sleep through the use of CBD, hemp and vapes.
Tell us about your business.
This is cannabinoid therapy. … We want to educate people on the uses of cannabis and hemp plants that go far beyond the cannabinoid THC, which people associated with getting high. We have a variety of products. We have beauty products, candles, dog food, and tea, but we also have specifically created scientifically-backed products to help you with sleep. They help you with anti-anxiety [and] … general wellness to help you with pain. We also have our hookah products. You can focus on the communal aspects of hookah without having to worry about lung cancer, so if you do come in and you buy one of our smoke-related products, you get an elevated experience.
What does this store do for the Black community?
We have a history of dealing with stuff but covering it up. We don’t want to confront these issues because our history is about pushing forward no matter what. I feel like I wanted to introduce this into the Black community and say, “Hey look, here are some products. They don’t have as their basis anything to do with THC or getting high but they have as their basis cannabinoids. Their basis is rooted in the hemp and cannabis plants and you can use these products to help you deal with the obstacles that we all face every day.” We all lack sleep because we’re working hard. We all have anxiety because bills stress us out. We all have pain because we injure ourselves when trying to play pickup basketball. We all need general wellness. We have that here for the Black community and every community.
How have you been able to support other Black businesses through your store?
Anytime I can collab with a minority … African American small business, I will. [We collab with a] husband and wife … [for] our beauty products. They have a successful brick-and-mortar branch in downtown Decatur. We have this brother, he got into the luxury candle business and was doing well, but he didn’t have a brick-and-mortar. So I said, “Hey, I’ll buy your product from you put it in our store and [promote] it.” My own brother has a product and he never could really get a solid footing in a brick-and-mortar because of various reasons. Now he has this brick-and-mortar to launch his product and … can go around the country [saying], “Hey look, I’m in 9 Leaves and I’m selling out.”
