After 16 years with the Chicago police, Jamay Nellum-Fane retired from the force this week. But she’s not done working.
According to the Chicago Sun Times, the former officer has shifted her focus to sharing the thing that made her last few years bearable: CBD, a non-psychotropic cannabis compound that can be extracted from hemp.
Her target demographic? Law enforcement officers who are dealing with PTSD, depression and insomnia, often in secret.
It’s a mission inspired by her own story.
Nellum-Fane joined the police force in 2005 with a vision of lifting up her community — the West-Side Chicago neighborhood of Austin — and bringing change to the city. She stayed devoted to that vision for 14 years, until changes in her life and the larger culture shifted the circumstances.
She birthed twin girls at age 45 and was struggling with postpartum depression when she went back to work.
“Having to return to the ‘fast-paced’ and violent Austin district didn’t help,” Tom Schuba wrote for the Sun Times.
Seeking relief from depression and sleep troubles, Nellum-Fane tried CBD. It worked. And it wasn’t long before she wanted to share this discovery with others.
Hoping a fellow cop could show peers in the field that cannabis doesn’t need to be feared and can in fact help them, Nellum-Fane started a CBD company, La Collection Mouja, with her husband and his friend.
“Officers are afraid,’” she told the Sun Times. “But I just tell them, ‘Hey, do your research. As long as it doesn’t have the THC in it, you’ll be fine.’”
A positive drug test isn’t a completely unfounded fear. Police are routinely tested for THC, and some CBD products have been reported to have caused positive test results. But La Collection Mouja asserts their broad spectrum CBD is free of THC, with test results from an independent lab certified by the International Organization for Standardization.
As of April 14, Nellum-Fane is sharing her enthusiasm for CBD as a former cop instead of a colleague. What spurred her decision to retire? With other officers leaving because of the Covid-19 pandemic and changing perceptions of the job around race, there was more work for those who stayed — canceled days off and higher pressure. After the police killing of George Floyd, Nellum-Fane also began to see her own profession differently. She told the Sun Times the circumstances and her internal struggles “made it extremely difficult for me to put that uniform on.”
Ultimately, she decided to leave her position as a training instructor and prioritize her family and her new vision.
“We wanted to be part of a team that’s gonna help the officers understand that it might be difficult for them to go see a therapist,” she told the Sun Times, “… but we can deliver them a product that’s gonna help them cope with whatever situation they’re going through.”
La Collection Mouja's CBD line includes supplements, gummies and massage oil. The company also sells shea-butter products for skin and hair.