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Before she was a senator and former presidential candidate,
\nKamala Harris spent most of her political career as a cop and not just any cop, but the \u201ctop cop,\u201d the boss of
\nthe police, the server of justice. Harris wore the label proudly and openly for
\na very long time, until sometime this year \u2014 the year she claimed to have
\nturned to policing sometime after smoking weed and listening to 2Pac, or maybe
\nit was Biggie, because who can say? \u2014 when having been a cop may
\n(or may not) have helped foil her campaign. <\/p>\n
All this is to demonstrate that while police remain more popular among Americans than In many American cities and states, former offenders hauled in and \u201cbrought to justice\u201d by people like Harris are now being given priority for cannabis business licenses. Such nods to \u201cequity\u201d seem just and equitable and perfectly logical. In other North American cities, former law-enforcement officers appear poised to start profiting from cannabis sales before equity applicants \u2014 or anyone else \u2014 get a chance to even begin.<\/p>\n Boston, Massachusetts is the biggest city east of the Mississippi where recreational cannabis is legal, but the city still has no storefront dispensaries. (There is one in metro Boston, in Brookline, that\u2019s so swamped with demand customers need to make a reservation.) As Boston Mayor Marty Walsh \u2014 who opposed legalization when his constituents approved it in 2016 \u2014 has said, one of the first dispensaries poised to receive a license to sell cannabis in Boston is Ascend Wellness whose CEO, Andrea Cabral, is a former sheriff\u2019s deputy and law-enforcement official. Meanwhile, the equity application filed by Leah Cooke Daniels\u2019s company, Alchemy League, has been lost in \u201cpending\u201d limbo for almost two years, as the Boston Globe reported.<\/a><\/p>\n Inexplicable delay, All this begs a question: Cops made the Drug War go; should cops be allowed a go selling the drugs they once pursued \u2014 and in the very area that they flooded with officers<\/a> to disrupt cannabis culture when it was still underground?<\/p>\n THREAD A corporate cannabis superstore is set to open in Kensington Market, almost directly across the street from the venerable @hotboxcafe<\/a>. Julian Fantino sits as chairman of a company involved in this transaction.<\/p>\n We should all be outraged. Here’s why. pic.twitter.com\/st7SF1UISZ<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Caryma Sa’d \u2013 Lawyer (@CarymaRules) December 13, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n
\nmembers of Congress and members of the media<\/a>, wearing a badge and
\nenforcing the rules is a liability, or at least a cause for heavy skepticism in
\ncertain circles. One of these circles is the cannabis industry, the past and
\nfuture bete noir of Drug War fighting cops, at least some of whom spent much of
\ntheir careers arresting people for nonviolent marijuana possession. <\/p>\n
\nbureaucratic inertia, or an example of police profiting from political
\npatronage? Only Walsh, Cabral, and Massachusetts regulators can say, but the
\nsituation is bad optics at best and in other places, including Toronto, ex-cops
\nhave magically drifted to the front of the line. In that city, a bellicose
\nformer police chief who once compared legalizing cannabis to permitting murder
\nand was staunchly opposed to legalization less than three years ago, may receive permission to sell cannabis in a
\ngentrifying neighborhood that\u2019s also home to one of the city\u2019s underground
\ndispensaries, which was denied such permission.<\/p>\n\n\n
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