After spending 31 years in prison, Charles Reed came home to Oakland, CA in 2017, and didn\u2019t like what he saw. For Reed and others recently incarcerated\u2014a population for whom he prefers the term \u201creturning family member\u201d\u2014there were no government-funded job-training, or counseling tailored to people who had adjusted to the numbing, controlling rigor of institutional life suddenly confronted with the dizzying choices of freedom. There was no one there to even teach him to turn on a smartphone. On top of that, the city looked horrible. \u201cOakland was full of helpless, homeless people,\u201d he said. There was trash everywhere. Poverty was out of control What went wrong?<\/p>\n
During Reed\u2019s time away, Oakland<\/a> became possibly one of America\u2019s most cannabis-friendly cities, a metamorphosis that has been nearly continuous\u2014and that\u2019s supposed to have had immense benefits for the city. The freewheeling early-aughts heyday of \u201cOaksterdam,\u201d when the city became the first in the US to regulate medical marijuana, is more than a decade in the rearview. In the adult-use legalization era, Oakland is considered a model of \u201csocial equity\u201d<\/a>: the concept that cannabis legalization should uplift people who have suffered most from the drug war\u2019s over-policing and over-incarceration.<\/p>\n Yet despite issuing hundreds of equity licenses<\/a>, and despite collecting $7 million a year in annual local cannabis-tax revenue, and despite setting aside startup capital and reserving business licenses<\/a> for people deemed drug-war harmed, Oakland hadn\u2019t managed to use legalization to solve all of its problems. Worse, the cannabis industry hasn\u2019t been the economic windfall to the Black and brown community it was advertised.<\/p>\n \u201cThe only benefit of legalization that I\u2019ve seen is that you can smoke it without worrying about police bothering us\u2014that\u2019s it,\u201d Reed said. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Meanwhile, he adds, most Black participation in cannabis is at the ground level: security guards, delivery drivers. \u201cThat\u2019s why I call cannabis \u2018the new cotton,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s not helping us at all, not one damn bit.\u201d<\/p>\n And another thing: Why should participation in an industry that doesn\u2019t appear to want their services in the first place be the Black and brown community\u2019s sole benefit from legalization? In other words, why should a license to go and sell drugs be drug-war victims\u2019 make-good?<\/p>\n This was the status quo Reed wanted to break with what he and his co-campaigners called \u201cThe Emerald New Deal<\/a>,\u201d which would\u2019ve redirected that $<\/a>7<\/a> million<\/a> in local cannabis taxes to a separate, restricted fund, overseen by an appointed commission, spent on \u201creturning family members\u201d such as Reed as well as equity business owners. \u201cOur argument was that there is an atonement factor, and that atonement is putting back into the people that were hurt and wronged,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Few doubt Reed\u2019s analysis\u2014that cannabis legalization hasn\u2019t been the boon it was promised to be. \u201cI feel in a way we were lied to,\u201d agreed Chaney Turner, a former dispensary operator who chairs the city\u2019s Cannabis Regulatory Commission. \u201cNothing in the way of what Prop. 64 (California\u2019s 2016 legalization ballot measure) promised with regard to equity has been fulfilled.\u201d<\/p>\n But where opinions differ is how to fix it. On July 11, the Oakland City Council voted against<\/a> placing the Emerald New Deal proposal before voters on the November ballot. One complaint was the very source of the $7 million itself: local taxes levied on equity operators as well as well-capitalized dispensaries. Those taxes needed to be cut in order to help ensure Black participation in cannabis\u2014and <\/em>more money needed to be spent on the services Reed advocated. Another was diverting that revenue away from existing programs to the separate structure the END\u2019s commission would decide on. Yet another was contention among some council members that END organizers had overstated their support.<\/p>\n At the same time, the Emerald New Deal\u2019s original critique stands.<\/p>\n \u201cWe definitely need to do more,\u201d said Turner, who related a personal story: Turner\u2019s mother, a recovering crack addict, ran her own business until she developed dementia\u2014and she did it all on her own, without government support.<\/p>\n Something should have been available, in the same way that cannabis-tax revenues should fund coding school classes, barbershop-licensing or other benefits other than a slightly-easier path towards a competitive, highly taxed industry\u2014and in the same way that Charles Reed should have had more greeting him on the other side of the prison wall than a failing community.<\/p>\n In some ways, the saga of equity<\/a> and its unmet promises suggests a flaw with that original legalization pledge. Why should cannabis by itself been asked to fix problems created by centuries of structural racism? But at the same time, as long as it was sold that way, it should be held to account. Was the Emerald New Deal the best route to take?<\/p>\n \u201cLegalization hasn\u2019t leaned heavily enough on righting the wrongs of prohibition,\u201d said Amber Littlejohn, executive director of the Minority Cannabis Business Association. <\/p>\n \u201cEven if you remove the moral imperative to do so, you still have the practical public benefits of restoring citizens\u2019 rights and correcting economic injustices that range from decreased recidivism to better health outcomes.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n The MCBA advocates for equity programs\u2014and Littlejohn was also skeptical of the Emerald New Deal, in part for its \u201clack of clarity.\u201d As elusive as the solution remains, at least everyone is clear on the problem\u2014or at least everyone who agrees cannabis and equity should be part of legalization.<\/p>\n The post Cannabis and Equity: Why Did the \u201cEmerald New Deal\u201d Fail?<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
After spending 31 years in prison, Charles Reed came home to Oakland, CA in 2017, and didn\u2019t like what he saw. For Reed and others recently incarcerated\u2014a population for whom he prefers the term \u201creturning family member\u201d\u2014there were no government-funded job-training, or counseling tailored to people who had adjusted toContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[148,50,216,15228,16359,16360,90,72,2111,4166,97],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56123"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56123"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56123\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56124,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56123\/revisions\/56124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
Equity\u2019s Unfulfilled Promises<\/h4>\n
\u201cFixing\u201d Cannabis Legalization With Cannabis and Equity<\/h4>\n
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\nRead More: Cannabis and Equity: Why Did the \u201cEmerald New Deal\u201d Fail?<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"