{"id":17056,"date":"2017-06-09T15:00:24","date_gmt":"2017-06-09T23:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/2017\/06\/09\/cannabis-decriminalization-offers-opportunity-for-reparations\/"},"modified":"2017-06-14T22:27:09","modified_gmt":"2017-06-15T06:27:09","slug":"cannabis-decriminalization-offers-opportunity-for-reparations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/2017\/06\/09\/cannabis-decriminalization-offers-opportunity-for-reparations\/","title":{"rendered":"Cannabis Decriminalization Offers Opportunity for Reparations"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The legal cannabis industry has almost everything; billions of dollars in sales, hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue \u2014 fuel for schools, drug-abuse programs and police \u2014 and thousands of new jobs. What it doesn\u2019t have is meaningful diversity. The green rush is still overwhelmingly white, and everybody knows it \u2014 nobody (honest) is denying it. Sam Kamin, a University of Denver law professor, told the Associated Press that this isn\u2019t a new problem and that solutions are elusive. \u201cIt\u2019s a problem that has been recognized but has proven to be relatively intractable,\u201d he said. The cannabis industry doesn\u2019t yet have the kind of (embarrassing lack of) diversity data published by Silicon Valley firms, but according to a BuzzFeed report published last year, Black people \u2014 who are four times more likely to be arrested for petty marijuana crimes than white people \u2014 own about 1 percent of the country\u2019s legal pot shops. But quantification is almost unnecessary: Look around at a cannabis business conference or entrepreneurs\u2019 summit; the investors, the founders \u2014 they are almost all white, and they are almost all men. The same people who escaped punishment for using and growing cannabis during prohibition are the ones taking control of the industry \u2014 and the people who went to jail are merely customers. It\u2019s not a new story, but that\u2019s the thing with systemic inequality \u2014 it\u2019s entrenched. It doesn\u2019t go away. It\u2019s embarrassing, awkward and inconvenient. Most of us would like to forget about it and think about other things. And that\u2019s why we have things like homelessness and poverty. In the industry\u2019s defense, this isn\u2019t by design, There are no explicit policies banning Black people from cannabis industry participation\u2026 at least not directly. Indirectly \u2014 there absolutely are. People convicted of a drug-related felony, such as growing or selling cannabis \u2014 now a highly marketable skill \u2014 will find it more difficult to obtain a state license for marijuana commercial activity in most states. And as the ACLU has said repeatedly, Black and Latinos are much more likely to be arrested for cannabis than their white peers. The AP tells the story of Andre Shavers, who was arrested with a quarter-ounce of cannabis in Oakland, California, in 2007. Possession of cannabis is supposed to be the absolutely last thing on police\u2019s to-do list in Oakland, where voters made marijuana crimes the lowest priority for police in 2004. Shavers spent five years on felony probation. A criminal record makes securing a minimum-wage job difficult \u2014 have fun obtaining a bank loan or attracting investors to start a business. Most states are issuing precious few licenses to recreational or medical cannabis dispensaries and growers, reserving opportunities for people with political connections. Again, it helps to be a white man: 65 percent of elected offices in the country are held by white men, who make up 31 percent of the population. Which means the marijuana industry has made it. It\u2019s as American as Silicon Valley, which\u2026
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