'Transforming Spaces' is a series about women driving change in sometimes unexpected places.

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Clamp the towel under the door. Open the window. And hide the hookah.

For decades, students have found ways to mask the acrid smell of marijuana smoke on campuses. However, Wanda James didn't always feel the need to hide. Ms. James, a 1986 graduate of the University of Colorado Boulder, sat on the steps outside her dorm and rolled joints with her friends.

It would be decades before Colorado became one of the first two states in the country to legalize recreational cannabis, but James was never worried on campus.

“The worst that would happen was they would tell us to put it away or they would take it away from us, and that would be the end of it,” Ms. recalled. James addresses the campus police.

Fast forward 40 years: Ms. James, a former Navy lieutenant, is a member of her alma mater's Board of Regents – and a prominent advocate for racial justice in the changing cannabis landscape.

It wasn't until after college that Ms. James realized she had been living in a kind of alternate reality with her cannabis use. She discovered how the United States' marijuana laws have led to black Americans being sentenced to prison at a higher rate than white Americans despite almost identical usage figuresgiving her the mission she has dedicated her life to.

Ms. James, 60, has owned several cannabis businesses over the years, including a pair of dispensaries and an edibles company, which has given her a platform to speak about what she believes are racial injustices in the industry. She is leading in her call for the legalization of cannabis at the state and federal level. Federal scientists have recommended in recent reports loosening restrictions on marijuana, a so-called Schedule I drug like heroin, and reclassifying it as a Schedule III drug, along with ketamine and testosterone.

“Wanda is a force of nature!” said Senator John Hickenlooper, the former governor of Colorado who appointed Ms. James to a task force that came up with recommendations on how marijuana should be regulated in Colorado. These recommendations became a model for the twenty states that have since legalized the sale of cannabis in recreational dispensaries.

But as more states have legalized the sale of recreational cannabis, prompting larger companies to enter an industry that is becoming increasingly mainstream, Ms. James is one of the few Black women in a leadership role. Several smaller cannabis companies, mostly run by people of color and women — many of whom were health care providers who saw the benefits of medical marijuana for those they cared for — have been driven out of the space, Ms. James said.

De facto women-owned cannabis companies decreased from 22.2 percent in 2022 to 16.4 percent in 2023 with racial minorities making up just 18.7 percent of owners, according to a report from MJBiz Daily, a publication that covers cannabis-related legal and financial news.

Today, Ms. James is pushing not only for broader legalization of cannabis — recreational use of the plant is legal in 24 states and the District of Columbia, but illegal at the federal level — but also for industry reforms to ensure more people looking for cannabis. like them fulfill leadership roles.

She believes that by becoming a pharmacy owner, and now a leader in an industry with policies that have historically harmed Black and Latino Americans, she could regain some power for minorities targeted in hotbed communities of marijuana arrests. In New York, for example, state cannabis regulators documented as many as 1.2 million marijuana arrests, which disproportionately targeted Black and Latino Americans over the past 42 years.

“There's so much going on in the industry where it's not a promising place right now that sees diversity as a positive thing,” she said. “We're trying to find ways to help.”

Ms. James grew up in rural Colorado on a ranch full of dogs, rabbits, chickens and guinea pigs. Her father, a single parent and Air Force veteran, was a cowboy and they often rode horses together.

The preference for caring for animals has continued. Ms. James has fostered more than 30 dogs over the years, including some she found on the street. Like her father, she joined the military and became the first black woman to complete the University of Colorado's ROTC program. She served in the Navy for four years before moving to Los Angeles, where she worked for two Fortune 100 companies. She also met her husband, Scott Durrah, then a real estate manager in West Hollywood and a fellow pot smoker, with whom she opened several restaurants in Colorado and California. Mrs. James' Rottweiler, Onyx, was the bridesmaid at their wedding.

As the couple built their business, the country felt the long-term effects of President Ronald Reagan's harsh cannabis policies. Mr. Reagan's Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984 and the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 — the year Ms. James graduated from college — “flooded the federal system with people convicted of low-level, nonviolent drug crimes,” according to the Brennan Center for Justice. In 2007, nearly 800,000 people were arrested for simple marijuana possession. the FBI. reported. About 80 percent of those arrested were black. .

“It was the demographic group that was least likely to have a family friend who was a lawyer and least likely to have parents or family money to be able to get them out of the situation that night,” Ms. James said.

These statistics remained a priority for Ms. James as she pursued cannabis business ownership and worked behind the scenes in politics.

In 2008, Ms. James managed the successful congressional campaign of Jared Polis, a Democrat who was elected governor of Colorado in 2018. The following year, she and Mr. Durrah opened the Apothecary of Colorado, a medical cannabis dispensary, and became the first African Americans own a legal pharmacy in the United States. They later closed the medical pharmacy to open an edibles company, Simply Pure, which became Simply Pure Denver, a recreational pharmacy, in 2015.

“She is a trailblazer,” said Tahir Johnson, a student of Ms. James. “When you think of a strong black woman, that's what she embodies.”

When she became a businesswoman and shaper of marijuana policy, she had a personal reference point that she often returned to in her work: her half-brother, who served time in prison for, among other things, possession of marijuana.

Ms. James has shared her journey in short documentaries produced by The Atlantic Ocean And Yahooand in 2018, she was named one of the 100 most influential people in the cannabis industry by High Times Magazine. She has used her platform to call for federal legalization of cannabis, which would help dispensary owners inject some of the money they paid in taxes back into their businesses, increasing the likelihood of creating “generational wealth” , she said; Because recreational cannabis is still illegal at the federal level, dispensary owners cannot write off basic expenses such as employee salaries, unlike non-cannabis businesses.

And she uses her network to create change. Starting with Mr. Johnson, her mentor, Ms. James is licensing the Simply Pure name to young entrepreneurs in the industry who come from communities harmed by racial disparities in marijuana arrests.

Mr Johnson said he had been arrested three times for marijuana possession and was “honoured”. Mrs. James chose him to continue her legacy. He plans to open Simply Pure Trenton soon.

“The fact that she trusted me to take on this mantle for this next phase of the organization means a lot to me,” he said.

The Guggenheim Museum announced Tuesday that after more than two years of negotiations, it had reached an agreement with its union and that nearly 150 curators, conservators and other employees affiliated with Local 2110 of the United Auto Workers had ratified their first contract.

The contract is effective immediately and provides an average salary increase of 11 percent over the term of the two-and-a-half-year contract, which runs through December 31, 2025. The contract provides enhanced health and retirement benefits and includes a grievance procedure with arbitration and the require managers to have a good reason to fire an employee.

The museum said in a statement from communications director Sara Fox that it is “pleased to announce that we have reached an agreement.”

The demands for unionization coincided with some of the greatest challenges Guggenheim leaders had faced in the museum’s eighty years. Employees organized in 2021 during the pandemic, when workers felt great uncertainty about layoffs. The organization also underwent a moment of deep reflection on race, with its chief curator, Nancy Spector, leaving her job.

Two years earlier, art handlers and maintenance workers had voted to join Local 30 of the International Union of Operating Engineers. The museum’s then-director, Richard Armstrong, emailed employees saying he believed a union would sow division at the institution “on a daily basis.” (Armstrong retired this year and no new director has been appointed yet.)

“It feels great to have a contract that is the culmination of all our organizing efforts,” said Julie K. Smitka, associate producer at the museum, in a statement. “It’s transformative for our workplace. Not only are there increases greater than what the Guggenheim has historically awarded, but we now have rights to the work that are legally enforceable.”

The Guggenheim said that while there had been other pay increases, they had not been locked in for years.

Local 2110 organizer Maida Rosenstein said in an interview that the terms of the contract were roughly similar to those in other contracts the union has signed with institutions such as the Whitney Museum and the New museum. But the contract has a term that is considerably shorter than that in other agreements: half the standard term of five years.

“For an initial contract, a shorter contract is better because it serves as a foundation on which we can build in future negotiations,” Alan Seise, public programs manager and member of the negotiating committee, said in a telephone interview. “The Guggenheim is in a moment of change, and I think the unionization efforts are part of that.”

“It’s Never Too Late” is a series that tells the stories of people who decide to chase their dreams on their own terms.

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Joanna Patchett has always feared death and the dying.

“I was terrified of being responsible for people’s lives, and I was afraid of the space between life and death,” she said.

And yet, in July 2020, as hospitals filled with coronavirus cases, Ms. Patchett, fresh out of nursing school, found herself caring for extremely sick Covid patients in the intensive care unit at Binghamton General Hospital in upstate New York.

“It was heartbreaking to see how sick everyone was. It was a life-changing and extremely difficult experience,” said Ms. Patchett, a 39-year-old resident of Binghamton. “I didn’t expect to see so many people die in quick succession, to be on a floor full of ventilated patients, to intubate people so many times or to be their primary person to interact with them while the rest of the world could. not.”

Mrs. Patchett had dreamed of becoming an actress, but was not very lucky in the profession. In 2019, aged 35, she went back to school, having been accepted into a one-year accelerated nursing program. Most of her classmates entered nursing right out of college, and many affectionately referred to her as her mother. As the pandemic worsened, she was deeply moved by “how people opened up and were so vulnerable to us.”

“You could see the humanity, how worthy of life everyone is and how hard the body fights to live,” she said.

Mrs. Patchett never imagined her life would turn out like this. After earning a bachelor’s degree in English and drama from Ithaca College, she felt “lost and depressed” for ten years as she bounced from one job to another – teaching English and yoga, working in a dental office. She felt behind in life because she didn’t know what she wanted to do. “I knew I had something to give, but I didn’t know what it was,” she said.

“I was jealous of people who challenged themselves,” Ms Patchett said. “I never had. If I wanted to grow and find myself, I had to try something scary. I had to take a risk and challenge myself.”

It was her mother who persuaded her to become a nurse, thinking she would be good in the field, even though Mrs. Patchett disagreed. “I didn’t think I was equipped for that experience, or that I could handle it spiritually and emotionally.”

But in recent years, that’s exactly where she’s been, despite the 12-hour shifts, the daily emergencies, and the often harrowing emotional work. For Mrs. Patchett, who lives alone, it was extremely difficult to return to an empty apartment. Although her family lived only five miles away, she was unable to see her family often due to the high risk of contracting the coronavirus, and there was nothing alive and vibrant to come home to. Many nights she came back from work and cried. With the intense stress of being an ICU nurse taking a mental toll on her, she adopted a cat, Tanky. “I wanted something to love,” she said. “Tanky really got me through Covid. He is 15 pounds of furball love and emotional healing.

“To lose patients that I had grown close to and have them die in such a devastating way made me question everything,” she said. “But I began to see this work as my duty. It was a war. I wouldn’t let them die alone.”

The following interview has been edited and shortened.

Since you unexpectedly ended up in the ICU taking care of Covid patients during your first job as a nurse, have you ever regretted your decision to become a nurse?

No. I have never regretted doing this job or being here, even if it was terrifying. Anyway, I found my calling. I wasn’t afraid to be the person who saw someone die, or to be with them when they were. I was good at being there when they passed, and I was able to work under tremendous stress.

How did you find the strength to face your fears?

I had no choice. You can’t run away from this kind of work. I found my ability to be challenged and then I found the strength to stay. I didn’t have the luxury of leaving sick people behind, nor did I want to. There had to be someone. I knew it had to be me.

Once you were accepted into a nursing program, you realized you were one of the oldest attending. How was that?

I felt out of place. Almost everyone was 20, 25 year olds and followed soon after getting their first nursing degree. They were bubbles. I didn’t feel part of that excited buzz. But Gen Z is a welcoming bunch. They didn’t have the judgment that was in me. Once we broke into clinical groups, we became very close and dependent on each other. We shared many intense moments that gave me strength because we supported each other.

How did it feel when the younger students called you mama?

It was endearing. I watched them and made sure everyone was okay. I would bring food in case someone hadn’t eaten. I became the person they turned to when they were going through a difficult moment. I had experience from being a parent, something no one else had. And they made me feel like I mattered; that made me feel special. I also learned from them.

What has the nursing profession taught you?

I’ve never had a job that was so meaningful or made me feel like I was serving a purpose. Facing death made me realize that you can’t give up. Nursing taught me that life will be incredibly hard, and it will hurt, but you have to make the choice to keep fighting – that’s part of life. I’ve learned that I matter, and that I matter to people who die and want me by their side while they do it.

After 18 months of fighting to save Covid patients, you decided to switch to palliative care. Why?

I was burned out. I realized I had to move to a different part of nursing. On the ICU floor, I had been placed in custody. I wanted to help people control their deaths, rather than watch people die swaying and gasping. When we seemed out of the woods for Covid, I started helping the elderly and those with terminal illness decide how they wanted to die. I am now a hospice nurse case manager at Lourdes Hospice, an outpatient end-of-life home care provider, in Vestal, NY, where I deal with 20 to 30 families every week. And I am part of deeper discussions about the dignity of dying.

What did you learn about yourself when you learned to care for others?

I have a voice that carries wisdom. I have a special ability to listen and see people as I am present with them in those very difficult moments.

What is the best advice you can give?

When it comes to changing your life, sometimes you have to decide to change. Once you do that, almost anything is possible. Everything you do contributes to who you are now. Ironic, my yoga, acting and teaching training gave me the ability to stay grounded, present and in the moment. No part of your journey, even if you’re not sure what you’re doing, or where it will lead you, is ever wasted. You are never late; you’re just not there yet.

“Making It Work” is a series about small business owners striving to get through tough times.

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At a time when most parking lots were empty, the gravel lot on the edge of Detroit’s suburbs was filled with cars—a disturbing sight in the fall of 2020. A stream of masked visitors looked around, wandering along a forest path toward lights deep in the forest, unsure of what to expect.

All the visitors knew was that the night promised an escape from their homes. They had come for Glenlore trails and the promise of an unusual half-mile walk through a lit-up forest.

“We wanted it to be like walking through a movie,” says Scott Schoeneberger, who co-created Glenlore Trails with his wife Chanel. “We didn’t have a baseline of what ‘good’ looked like. We just went out and put some lights in the woods.

Visitors experienced more than a few lights that night: they were immersed in a world of interactive video walls, multi-colored waterfalls, video projections that illuminated the canopy, and more. The project was a hit. Tickets for the month-long run sold out within a week, and Mr. Schoeneberger added more dates. The couple quickly realized that this long-running idea could help their family’s primary company, Bluewater Technologies, which builds live experiences for corporate and convention clients, weather the Covid-19 pandemic and save some of their 225 keep employees on leave.

They certainly didn’t expect Glenlore Trails to make up 6 percent of the company’s revenue three years later, expecting it to be 25 percent within five years. “It was a whirlwind, and after four years it still feels that way,” said Ms. Schoeneberger, who manages operations for the events.

Bluewater, like many small businesses, struggled to survive during the pandemic. An August 2020 Visa survey found that 67 percent of small businesses said they were changing: Restaurants began selling homemade meal kits or opened general stores; gyms offered virtual classes; some vets tried drive-up consultations.

“I saw a lot of risk taking during the pandemic,” said Laura Huang, the director of the Women’s Entrepreneurship Initiative at Northeastern University. “Huge risks are easy to do when you’re down to zero.”

Many companies are abandoning those pandemic pivots as customers demand a return to normalcy. But for some owners, such as Mr. Schoeneberger, the pandemic proved to be fertile ground for experimentation that continues to pay off. They make their pivot points permanent.

For that to happen, Dr. Huang, “a successful pivot should complement their business, not cannibalize it.”

When the pandemic hit, Mr. Schoeneberger that the company’s audiovisual equipment was sitting unused in storage and that Bluewater’s staff needed work. So he went to his mother, Suzanne Schoeneberger, the owner of the company, and the team with his idea. They all agreed, and in just a month Mr. Schoeneberger, 37, and his wife, 34, went from a frantic search for a piece of land to rent to welcoming the first guest to Glenlore Trails. To publicize it, they hired an influencer to promote the walk on TikTok.

“Due to the circumstances, everyone was willing to try it,” said Mr. Schoeneberger.

Now they’ve branched out and are working with conventions and corporate clients on similar experiences. They’ve also expanded the walk to a mile and released new themes each season. They bought equipment specifically for the project, are looking for a permanent location and have hired five full-time employees and 20 part-time employees for the company’s themed entertainment division.

“It has really become a research and development center for us,” said Mr. Schoeneberger.

Pivot points that lean toward expertise in a new way are most likely to succeed, said Dr. Huang. “Those small businesses that are holding up are the ones that are going back to those elements that are strong.”

For Kyle Beyer, that meant leaning on vaccines. Before the pandemic, his independent pharmacy in Shorewood, Wisconsin, just north of Milwaukee, didn’t offer them; now the service accounts for 10 percent of sales and is indirectly responsible for doubling the company’s prescription business in three years.

“What Covid did for us was cram five years of marketing into one year,” said Mr. Beyer. “It brought people into our house who otherwise wouldn’t have had a reason to come in.”

Mr Beyer, 37, had been a pharmacist for over a decade when he decided to buy his own practice in 2019. After eight cold calls, a pharmacist in Shorewood agreed to meet. They closed the deal from what was then an 88-year-old company, North Shore Pharmacy, on March 1, 2020.

Less than two weeks later, everything changed. Mr. Beyer was no longer just a pharmacist going to work, but an entrepreneur walking into the unknown.

The pharmacy never closed because it was considered an essential business, but many of Mr. Beyer were at high risk for serious illness and were hesitant to leave their home. With fewer patrons inside, he began renovating the space, which hadn’t been updated since the 1980s.

When doses of Covid-19 vaccines finally became available, he signed up to receive them. Mr. Beyer didn’t think North Shore Pharmacy would be high on the list to get the early doses, but in early January 2021, the state’s health department called to tell him 100 doses would be delivered the next day.

What followed was 24 hours of chaos. He immediately reinvented a renovated display area as a waiting area for the vaccination service. “It was just by chance that we had this big, beautiful space where 10 people could talk and sit quietly,” said Mr. Beyer.

As word spread, people from neighboring towns began driving in for their photos. Mr. Beyer hired a full-time nurse to meet the increased demand. The intensity has decreased, but the nurse is still employed part-time, providing childhood immunizations, back-to-school immunizations and travel services.

“We realized that it’s our chance to be someone locally who can solve problems,” said Mr. Beyer.

In March 2022, he bought a second location in a neighboring community where he could add compounding – making specialty medicines – to his services.

Sometimes it’s not about what you do, but who you do it for. For LaQuanta Williams, that meant ending the domestic cleaning service to focus on commercial customers. It’s a change that makes them permanent.

“Covid steered my business in a direction I didn’t expect,” said Ms Williams. “I lost all my residential clients in one day. Literally the same day.”

Mrs. Williams started her business, White glove cleaning solutions, as a student at the University of Akron in Ohio. She took an entrepreneurship course and her professor asked the students to start their own companies. A friend commented that she was always cleaning, and an idea was born.

Her project impressed her professor, who suggested she apply for a cleaning position at the university to gain experience before going into business. She got the job, but decided to put starting her own business on hold.

But in 2018, Ms Williams, now 45, was laid off from her job. She decided to take her severance pay and start the business. She rented an office and started handing out postcards. Her schedule began filling up with residential clients almost immediately.

They all disappeared in March 2020. It was scary at first, Ms Williams said. But she had been researching electrostatic sprayers that could quickly disinfect surfaces. She bought two and started calling shops and offices to offer her services.

Once again, her schedule was filling up quickly. A program to help minority suppliers put her in touch with several contractors, who hired her to clean up after construction. She’s had to hire five people to keep up with the demand, and she can’t imagine ever returning to housekeeping.

“Doing that allows me to be picky about clients,” she said.

Some companies are so big, so intertwined with the economy and our daily lives, current events and politics, that it can be difficult to understand the true extent of their importance.

CVS Health is one such company. With approximately 300,000 employees, more than 9,000 stores, and more than 40,000 physicians, pharmacists, and nurses on staff, CFS has an outsized impact in the U.S. health care system. And with its 2018 merger with Aetna, the health insurance giant, the company now also insures more than 20 million people.

Last year, Karen S. Lynch took over as CEO, replacing longtime CEO Larry Merlo. For Ms. Lynch, who came through Aetna and previously worked for other insurers, taking on the new job presented a host of immediate challenges.

CVS stores remained open during the pandemic, even though the army of office workers has been working from home for nearly two years. The pharmacies became vaccine distribution centers and testing sites. A jury found last year that CVS and other drugstore chains contributed to the opioid epidemic. And Ms. Lynch, who prefers to steer clear of politics, said she simultaneously stood by the company’s commitment not to donate to Republicans who voted against certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election, while also continuing to lobby against more public options for health care.

Ms. Lynch, who rides her platoon to relieve stress and champions physical and mental health, says she is unimpressed by the myriad complexities and often returns to the words of her aunt, who raised her.

“The reason I’m as decisive as I am is because when I was growing up my aunt told me that you’re supposed to make decisions in your life, and you’re going to have to live with those decisions right, wrong or indifferent,” she said. “If you make decisions as often as I do, you’re making a bad decision. You just have to adapt.”

This interview has been shortened and edited for clarity.

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You took over as CEO in the middle of the pandemic. What are some of the challenges you currently face as the leader of this large diversified company?

I never thought I would be taking over as CEO in the middle of a pandemic. But throughout my career, I’ve faced a number of different types of challenges and changes and major strategic issues, and this is different, but it’s not different.

I stepped back and said, “What is our true purpose of the company?” What I want to do is make sure people have access to quality, affordable healthcare and that as a company we can help people navigate the healthcare system. Because we are so central to people’s lives, we have the ability to be even more central to people’s lives. That’s the goal I really want to make, be part of someone’s everyday life where if they’re healthy, they work with us to stay healthy. If they have health issues, they contact us so we can help manage and navigate that.

Can you give me some examples?

Let’s start with a pandemic, right? So you come to CVS for your test and we started that, you know, way back when you came to CVS for your vaccines. We did virtual primary care as a change in how people think. We’ve added behavioral health specialists to our stores, which is really different. We’re going to expand health care. I don’t want people to think of CVS Health as just that drug store. I want them to think about it being a healthcare company.

How big is shoplifting for your stores right now?

There are certain parts of the country that are doing worse than others, but it has no material impact on our financial results. However, it is a safety issue for our employees. So one of the things we’ve done is we’ve invested more in security.

What are the consequences of the labor shortage for the company? Do you find it difficult to hire people?

It’s a big challenge for us. We have increased our wages. Over the past year, we have been paying pharmacy bonuses. We’ve done big recruiting days. But it’s a constant balance and a constant fight.

You said you would raise your minimum wage to $15 an hour by this summer. Is that correct?

We introduced it in phases. So we’ve rolled it out over time and I don’t know if it’s enough. We’re obviously moderating wages in different parts of the country and I’m going to continue to evaluate it.

What do you think are the most effective ways we can reduce health care costs for ordinary Americans? And what is the role of your company in this?

There are a few things. One is that there is the place of concern. Our role is to provide an alternative care location, either in our retail locations or at home with virtual connections. We’re entering the primary care space because we believe that primary care really does have a significant impact on healthcare costs.

And I’m pretty passionate about the fact that the head is attached to the body, and most people experience behavioral issues when they experience physical health issues. We are only concerned with physical health. We’re not in the behavioral health part, and I think we can do more.

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“I think this is going to be an endemic thing, and I think we’re going to see these annual shootings.” —Karen Lynch

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When it comes to insurance, many people would say that more public options would go a long way in reducing health care costs. Why is it that CVS is so opposed to things like Medicare for All, the public option, and other public health insurance plans?

For example, let’s look at Medicare Advantage. That is a program that works and is led by the private sector, even though it is funded by the government. With the private sector, you have more opportunities for competition and opportunities for innovation and more opportunities to create new paradigm shifts in healthcare. And that’s why we were against these public options, because we really believe that the private sector will continue to innovate.

But we’ve had decades of private control and competition, and it hasn’t given us the desired result. Why should people believe that more of the same will lead to a different result?

Why do you think the government would be better at it? Just look at the number of government programs that are not working as effectively as they should.

Your pharmacists played an important role in putting needles in the arms. If you do, how do you work to address vaccine skepticism, which is still pervasive in this country?

We have worked in the communities to train people. We’ve even put vans in communities and we’ve used all of our resources. When we started, we first placed the stores in these underserved communities, and about 40 percent of our vaccines are in those underserved communities. There is clearly more work to be done. It is education in all our parts. We’re doing our part. I know the government is doing its part. And I’ve also done it with a little stick behind the door with my own team, by doing a vaccine mandate.

We’re in the healthcare industry, and this is a public health problem, and we should be at the forefront of it. I don’t think vaccines are going away. I think this is going to be an endemic thing, and I think we’re going to see these annual shots. That will be part of a role we continue to play in keeping America healthy.

A jury ruled that CVS and other pharmacy chains were partly responsible for the opioid crisis. I know CVS is appealing, but when you look at that ruling, shouldn’t pharmacists have a responsibility to review and report suspicious prescriptions?

Our view and the historical view is that pharmacists are trained to carry out the prescriptions of doctors. Now, after all that stuff that’s happened, we’ve put controls in place so that the pharmacists mark those things that don’t look particularly good. So we’re doing it now. But they are not the doctors, and they are not the ones who prescribe. And we didn’t just do it on CVS. On the Aetna side, one of the most egregious things we saw was dentists. So one of the things that we put into our kind of policy was limiting the number of opiates that we would pay for dentists to use. The whole system is responsible.

We speak on January 6. How do you feel about the role of the company and your role as CEO in addressing political issues at this highly charged time?

You don’t want me to talk about politics. I do worry about it. I think there are certain points in time where I think CEOs need to step in, when they hit their company or their employees. And there are certain times when that’s none of our business. It’s a delicate balance. We need to make sure that your first interest is your colleagues, your customers and then your shareholders, and make sure you do what’s right for them.

Many companies have said they will no longer make political contributions directly or through PACs to members of Congress who voted against the certification of the 2020 presidential election. Where is CVS Health on that particular issue?

On that particular issue, we have made statements that we would not support certain politicians involved, and we have stood our ground.

Is there a reassessment of whether or not you want to contribute to Republicans or Democrats at all?

It’s something that weighs heavily on my head. As a company, there are certain things we advocate for and things we support. And I’ll be honest with you, this isn’t an easy one, and it’s something I’ve spent a lot of time working on with my government affairs team. We debate about it. I don’t think I have an answer for you. I’m trying again to take a really balanced approach and not do things that hurt the business.

Three years ago, Abigail E. Disney began publicly berating the Walt Disney Company for its “obscene” wage inequality, with Robert A. Iger, who was then CEO, on one side, and hourly theme park employees on the other. . The company founded by her grandfather and great-uncle repeatedly fired back, at one point calling her claims a “gross and unfair exaggeration of the facts.”

But Ms. Disney has refused to back down, even though the company recently agreed to a 16 percent raise for certain theme park employees. In fact, she’s escalating her campaign — and for the first time, she’s taking two of her three siblings with her.

“The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales”, an activist documentary about the pay gap between poor and poor companies will premiere Monday as part of the Sundance Film Festival, which is being held digitally due to the pandemic. Mrs. Disney and Kathleen Hughes directed the film; Ms. Disney’s sister, Susan Disney Lord, and a brother, Tim, are among the executive producers. The film positions the entertainment company that bears their name as “ground zero of America’s rising inequality.”

To paint that hard picture, Ms. Disney and Ms. Hughes profile four Disneyland administrators, who were making (prepandemic) $15 an hour at the time of filming. They are all struggling immensely with the rising cost of housing in Southern California. One of them says he knows Disneyland employees who “had to make a decision between medication or food”.

Intermittently, the filmmakers snapped to shots of Mr. Iger, who served as Disney’s CEO from 2005 to 2020, a period of staggering shareholder gains (including Ms. Disney and other members of her family). Viewers are reminded that Disney awarded him a $65.6 million pay package in 2018. Equity awards tied to the acquisition of 21st Century Fox assets made up 40 percent.

Mrs. Disney and her sister then reminisce about their grandfather, Roy O. Disney, who founded the company in 1923 with his brother Walt. “I can’t imagine him taking home $66 million for a year’s work in the same year, when people at the same company can’t afford food,” said an outraged Ms. Disney. Her sister replies, “That never would have happened — it would.” never has happened.”

The Disney family has not been involved in managing Disney since their father, Roy E. Disney, stepped down from the board in 2003 and led a shareholder revolt that resulted in Mr. Iger’s ascension. Roy E. Disney passed away in 2009.

The New York Times was allowed to view the film prior to its premiere. Disney, which was denied early access, responded to questions about the film’s content and tone with the following statement:

“The wellbeing and aspirations of our staff and cast will always be our top priority. We provide an industry leading and holistic employment package with competitive pay and comprehensive benefits for our cast members to grow their careers and provide for their families. That starts with fair wages and industry-leading entry-level wages, but also includes affordable medical coverage, tuition-free access to higher education, subsidized childcare for eligible employees, as well as personal and professional development pathways.”

The statement added: “We are committed to building on our significant efforts to date.”

Recent developments at Disneyland went against the film’s narrative. In December, unions represented 9,500 property managers, ride operators and parking attendants signed a new contract that raises the minimum starting wage to $18 an hour by 2023 — up from $15.45 last year, up 16 percent — and includes seniority-based bonuses. Disneyland is almost fully staffed again after being closed for more than a year due to the pandemic, a spokeswoman said. The Anaheim resort employs approximately 30,000 people.

Mr. Iger has also left the company. Ms. Disney tells viewers she decided to make the film because she was frustrated and angry at his “curt” response to an email she sent him in 2018 about theme park employee compensation. He declined to comment on this article.

Ms. Disney has faced claims of discrimination and unfair treatment of former employees at one of her companies, Level ahead, which helps fund and produce entertainment projects with a focus on social justice. (“There’s fair criticism in there,” Ms. Disney told The Hollywood Reporter last year.)

In an interview via Zoom, Ms. Disney and Ms. Hughes, an Emmy award-winning TV news producer, said they were “encouraged” by the Disneyland pay raise, but said it wasn’t enough — that about $24 an hour was needed. living wage.”

“If everything else is, why did the new CEO walk away with $32.5 million for a not very profitable year?” said Mrs. Disney. She was referring to Bob Chapek. reported Disney $2 billion profit for 2021, compared to a $2.8 billion loss in 2020. Before the pandemic, Disney generated $10 billion in profits annually.

The filmmakers are still looking for a distributor. They hope to use Sundance to spark interest from Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+ or another Disney competitor. In addition to Disney’s condemnation, “The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales” deals with a host of complicated topics, including the evolution of capitalism, shifting government economic policies, and racial injustice.

“I want system-wide changes — from CEOs in general and Wall Street in particular — that result in the recognition of the dignity and humanity of every employee,” Ms. Disney said.

Ms. Disney is a prominent member of the Patriotic millionaires, a group pushing for higher taxes on corporations and wealthy individuals like themselves. As she’s said over the years, it’s a position some of her own family members have a hard time understanding. (That seems to include a brother, Roy P. Disney, who has supported Mr. Iger and is not involved in “The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales”.)

In case anyone thinks the film is her last word on the subject of wage inequality at Disney and other companies, she ends her documentary with these words: “To be continued.”

As a kid growing up in the suburbs of Minneapolis in the ’90s, Nick Green’s kitchen cabinets weren’t like his friends’ kitchen cabinets. There were no salty snacks, no sweet cereals, no soft drinks. Even Honey Nut Cheerios were banned.

His mother, who was part of a large Mexican-American family, had seen how the modern diet led to so many health problems for her relatives, and decided to raise her own children on as little processed food as possible.

Mr Green said it was frustrating not to be able to get traditional sweets and snacks – and that he raided his friends’ kitchens when he got the chance – but that he was ultimately grateful for the strict diet at a young age, believing that it brought him good habits and good habits. health.

It also gave Mr. Green the basis of a billion-dollar idea.

After graduating from Harvard College, working briefly for McKinsey & Company and selling a test prep company he founded, Mr. Green and a few other like-minded entrepreneurs founded Thrive Market, an online marketplace for healthy and eco-friendly food and household goods, in 2013.

Today, Thrive, which is still privately owned, has more than a million members who pay $60 a year for the privilege of ordering chickpea pasta, plant-based cleaning products, and organic wine.

This interview has been shortened and edited for clarity.

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How was your childhood and your family’s diet?

I grew up middle class in Minnesota. It was the era of not only the food pyramid with bread at the bottom, but also spiked junk food, two-liter bottles of soda at the dinner table, things like that. And I had a completely different household. My mother came from a large Mexican-American family. And she watched family members struggle with diabetes, obesity, heart disease, and cancer.

She was really obsessed with changing that trajectory for our family, and I saw how hard she had to work to do it. There was no healthy shopkeeper around. So we were that weird house in the neighborhood that had no sugary cereal, no good snacks, no soda.

Didn’t that drive you crazy as a child and teenager?

Yes. I was the total glutton when I went to a friend’s house.

Were you professionally focused on food from the start?

There was a period when I moved out of the house that I was absolutely not focused on. I wouldn’t call my college years particularly healthy. But when I got into my twenties and started working hard, I realized very well how much diet and exercise made a difference in my ability to maintain that pace. I did Paleo in 2007 before it was a thing. I was fasting.

What is the biggest professional mistake you’ve ever made and what have you learned from it?

The biggest professional mistake I’ve ever made was actually the summer I decided to get a real job. After my junior year at Harvard, everyone was doing consulting or investment banking, and I decided I had to do that too. So I spent the summer at McKinsey and the people were great. The work was interesting, but it just didn’t inspire me the way entrepreneurship did. So it was actually the mistake that clarified my path the most because if I could go to a place with the family tree, it had great people and was intellectually stimulating and it still didn’t fill me up, I knew I had to start something myself.

What happened when the pandemic hit? Many companies fell off the cliff.

The acute phase of the pandemic was truly a unique moment. You went from some people thinking about their health to literally everyone thinking about health. You went from some people shopping online to everyone shopping online. So we had to respond by scaling.

One of the big challenges initially was: how do we keep our fulfillment centers running and our employees safe? Two-thirds of our employees are in those fulfillment centers, and they really were the heroes of that acute phase.

Aside from all the madness of that acute phase, the pandemic has accelerated the secular trends that we as a company were already betting on. People are more socially attuned and more environmental oriented, more health conscious today than they were two years ago. And then ecommerce. We’ve had two years where people have become more and more accustomed to online shopping. And I think a lot of that behavior has stuck.

What do you think is the biggest obstacle to getting people to eat healthy in America today?

There are several obstacles. One is just the cost. Organic and natural products are often expensive. Another is geography. Half of Americans do not live within driving distance of a healthy retailer. But I think the biggest are more emotional barriers. Where do I begin? Can I trust these products? It’s overwhelming. It’s intimidating. If you go to Amazon and search for almond butter, you will find 9,000 results. Where should I go with that?

We want to break down each of the barriers to conscious living. We want to make it affordable. We also want to make it very easy and seamless.

I’m surprised you didn’t mention the fast food industry and the relentless marketing of unhealthy foods.

Look, that’s coming. These are big companies with a lot of money and they can dominate the airwaves. What’s encouraging to me is that despite this, you have this shift in attitude. You have more people who want to get healthy and you have more people who are becoming more aware of social and environmental issues. And that awakening isn’t just on the coasts or just among affluent consumers.

Are you aware of any kind of partisan or political dynamics among your membership?

That’s honestly not important to us. I think getting healthy transcends political lines. Everyone wants their families, their communities to do better. And the charities we let our members shop with also tend to transcend politics. Some, such as local, family-owned and kosher, are even traditionally associated with more conservative values. We consider ourselves really a platform. It’s not about imposing our political values ​​or serving one type of group. It’s about getting people to vote with their money for what they care about the most.

You’ve hired quite a bit in the last 20 months and this is a mission-driven company. How do you make sure you bring in the right people if you can’t meet them?

Getting the right people into our fulfillment centers is very important. We don’t want to be a revolving door. We want to provide long-term work and that means good pay, but also good benefits, an opportunity to earn equity, a culture where they feel respected and valued. I think that’s really unique to typical fulfillment center jobs, and it’s given us a great advantage in attracting really talented people who are really connected and work hard for us and stay.

As for how do you hire someone if you’re not going to meet them in person? It’s extremely difficult. You just don’t build relationships over email and Slack. And there’s something, we believe, that’s really important about actually being physically present.

What do you think is one of the biggest misconceptions people have about what constitutes good leadership today?

The importance of decisiveness and action is probably overemphasized. Both are very important as a leader. But I think very often, just as important is listening and looking for perspectives. I’ve had some humble mistakes I’ve made, most of which were because I moved too fast and thought I had the answer. And I’m constantly amazed when I go into the organization to get feedback, how insightful and how much knowledge and understanding and perspective there is when you listen to your people.

How do you explain the anti-vaccine, anti-authoritarian conspiracy theories among some wellness influencers? Where does that come from?

I think it has less to do with health and more to do with politics. Unfortunately, some of these topics that should be issues of personal health or public health have become embroiled in politics and become issues of freedom and just the political dynamics. The whole thing, you know, mask versus no mask, vaccine versus no vaccine, it’s really sad that these are issues where we’re not looking at efficacy and facts, but instead at political leanings and tribalism.

Is that “Collapse” by Jared Diamond on your bookshelf?

Yes. I read that ten years ago and I think it’s relevant again.

In what specific way? Environmental collapse? Or are you thinking, for example, of the state of our democracy?

All of the above. Not to say we’re about to be in one of those dimensions, but I think it’s a reminder that things that seem like they could go on forever don’t necessarily have to be. I think we’re seeing some of that with where things have gone politically in our country. I think we certainly see it with environmental threats.

As protests following the killing of George Floyd rocked the nation in the summer of 2020, the executive director of the Sierra Club wrote an explosive blog post about John Muir, the legendary conservationist who founded the environmental organization.

Muir, the executive director wrote, had made “disparaging comments about Black people and Indigenous peoples that were based on deeply damaging racist stereotypes.”

That blog post, and the internal debate that followed led to the departure of the executive director last year. And while the Sierra Club now has an acting executive director, many of its public leadership duties have fallen to the chairman of the board of directors, Ramón Cruz.

Mr. Cruz, who is from Puerto Rico, has worked in the environmental movement for decades. He was arrested while protesting the Navy’s use of Vieques Island as a training ground, and held positions with the Environmental Defense Fund and the Partnership for New York City.

And while the Sierra Club works to move beyond Muir’s uproar, Mr. Cruz doesn’t view the organization’s work strictly as advancing conservation or fighting climate change, but as part of a broader movement for social and ecological justice.

This telephone interview has been shortened and edited for clarity.

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Where are you today?

I am in Brooklyn, New York, the land of the Canarsee people. When we say where we are today, we have the land recognitions of indigenous peoples. New York was the greater Lenape area and Brooklyn was Canarsee country.

Why do you think it’s important to recognize that?

Especially after the summer of reckoning, after George Floyd and so much focus on the effects of systemic racism in our society, understanding the legacy of racism, supremacy and colonialism is very important to understanding where we are as a society today. I am from Puerto Rico, a colonized country. All this is very important. So when I introduce myself I usually say I’m in the Greater Lenape Territory in the Canarsee People’s Unceded Land, but I’m from Borinquen which is the Taíno name of the island of Puerto Rico.

We were not the original inhabitants of most of the places we enter. There have been other groups and other nations that have been there for thousands of years, and when it comes to environmental issues, many of these groups were much better stewards of our natural world than we are today.

Tell me about your experience as a boy in Puerto Rico and your relationship with the country.

My uncle had a house behind the Yunque National Forest, and that’s where we would celebrate all major occasions, everything from Epiphany to Mother’s Day to Holy Week, so that was a place I definitely connected with that aspect. I was also a boy scout, so my family went camping.

And my mother was a big influence. She was a nun, and while I’m not necessarily focused on the religious rituals, she had a service call. She was also a scientist and she had an ecology club at the school I went to. She was a teacher there and we did recycling when there wasn’t much recycling going on.

What does the organization think about the balance between nature conservation and climate change?

I would say both are the same. Over the past 10 years or so, the Sierra Club has put a lot of effort into transforming itself into an organization that puts justice and fairness at the heart of what we do. That’s important to recognize because the environmental movement and the environmental justice movement didn’t necessarily work together for many years.

When we go to a place, we want to make sure that we are invited and that the emphasis is on bottom-up organizing. That there is a spirit of reciprocity and solidarity, and that we are inclusive and that we also share resources. It is that commitment to transformation in the Sierra Club that enables us to be better allies and better partners, so that instead of just leading the movement, we are broadening the movement.

We are an organization that strives to be much better allies than we have been in the past. It also recognizes where we may have done damage in the past, where we are in the progressive movement and the interconnectedness with other parts of the movement – that environmental rights are human rights, justice rights, gender rights and reproductive rights. .

You said that conservation and climate change are essentially the same thing, but we’re increasingly seeing these two things actually conflicting sometimes, for example with offshore wind farms or large transmission lines passing through relatively pristine land. Now how should we weigh the relative merits of each of these causes?

The climate crisis is the greatest threat in human history. There is also no doubt that everything humans do has an impact on the natural environment. That is why I think the most important thing is to put science at the forefront of strategies and actions. Renewable energy projects can therefore have consequences and negative effects. However, these are much less than fossil fuels.

To your question of where we draw the line, it varies on a case-by-case basis. In Puerto Rico a few governments ago there were a lot of big renewable projects and permits being given away, and the environmental community was against it not because we were against renewable energy, but because we were against projects that benefit only a few, that follow corruption programs that we seen in the past, and who also use productive land that could have been used for agriculture or conservation if there were alternatives. There will always be some tension.

If the Sierra Club focuses so much on issues like immigration or racial justice, is there a risk of losing sight of its core environmental and conservation mission?

For me it doesn’t take our eyes off the ball; it’s really about broadening our vision. At least that view was very narrow in the past – thinking it’s only about nature and not seeing the interactions and how important is the betterment of everyone in society. Apart from that, I really believe that we cannot really win the battle in the climate crisis if we do not address these social and racial aspects.

If we think we can frack gas in Appalachia under the assumption that it’s good for the economy, the people in those places become disposable. There is an ideology behind it that is based on racism and supremacy. You have to break that down to make sure we don’t have any places of sacrifice, that there aren’t any disposable people.

The legacy of environmental pollution is also the legacy of that system. So what we’re saying is we don’t just care about the places, but we care about the people in those places, and we believe that in order to protect the environment, we also need to protect people and to make sure people have the resources to thrive in an economy that builds a planet that is balanced and healthy for all.

Saying that confronting the climate crisis is essentially also confronting things like the legacy of racial justice in this country risks alienating some Americans who might be willing to have a conversation about the climate crisis , but don’t want to have a conversation about race?

Over the past 20 years, all efforts to pass climate legislation have been led by broad national groups that would say, “Let’s go with market mechanisms or focus on the big picture.” And many of the environmental justice and community groups weren’t thrilled about it because they knew they would still be affected. As much as I’d like to have a national carbon trading program, when it comes to local issues, you can have a trading system but still have pollution in areas that then become the zones of sacrifice. So I have to make sure we’re better allies.

We were in the middle of discussions about Muir and his legacy. In California, you may have many things named after him. But even if you change people’s minds about Muir, you still have a movement that has a set of goals that are very precise and very important.

How optimistic or pessimistic are you about the ability of the international community to keep warming below 1.5 degrees and avoid the worst effects of climate change?

I am pessimistic and optimistic at the same time. Pessimistic that we don’t have enough time to keep fighting amongst ourselves. However, there were many things that were very successful in Glasgow. [The 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference was held in Glasgow.]

Is it enough for what we need? Absolutely not. We are not on track to meet the grand goals of the Paris agreement. But are we closer after Glasgow? Yes absolutely. So it’s a mixed bag. International cooperation is essential to the survival of, you know, people and the world as we know it today.