When possession of marijuana for personal use was legalized in California in 2016, Ingrid Archie was among the law’s most ardent supporters.
Archie was convinced the new law – known as Proposition 64 on the ballot -- would help reverse the harm the country’s harsh and punitive drug laws had exacted on communities of color. In particular, she was bursting with hope at the law’s promise that victims of the War on Drugs would be given priority to make a living in the cannabis industry and start a better life.
Indeed, she was among the first people in the state to have a felony drug conviction for marijuana (cannabis) reduced to a misdemeanor, a provision of the new law. It seemed like a good thing at the time.
But that’s when Archie’s nightmare began.
“When it came time to put in an application [for a cannabis industry license], I had to prove that I had a felony cannabis conviction” in order to get the preferential treatment the law provided, she said. But “when they looked up my name, the conviction wasn’t there anymore.”
Then Archie had to prove that she had lived for 10 years in a community that was impacted by the War on Drugs. She had to obtain her school records and other documents.
“Because I couldn’t prove at the time that I had a marijuana [felony] conviction, there were so many barriers. I felt so victimized all over again,” she said.
Archie now works with A New Way of Life Reentry Project. She was one of several speakers participating in a recent webinar series on cannabis, equity and racial justice, sponsored by the Association of Boys and Men of Color, Youth Forward, and California Urban Partnership.
Gap between promise and practice
In this session, panelists explored the wide gap between the promise of equity with the passage of the cannabis law and how it’s played out in practice. They also discussed what’s necessary to ensure real equity and the possibility of healing in the communities that have been destroyed by the War on Drugs.
These communities tended to be African American and Latino – groups who were, respectively, 500% and 25% more likely than Whites to receive felony convictions when arrested for drugs, even for simple possession of marijuana. That often resulted in incarceration, job loss, loss of voting rights, and for Latinx immigrants, deportation. (Read here about the first session in this series and find out more about the data.)
Other speakers included Malakai Seku Amen of the California Urban Partnership, Kika Keith of the Social Equity Owners and Workers Association, Lanese Martin of the Oakland-based Hood Incubator, and Robert Chlala, a PhD student at University of Southern California who has worked with the United Food and Commercial Workers Union.
Martin is not at all surprised about the barriers Archie encountered. She says Prop. 64 lacked any language that would assure equitable practices to support survivors of the War on Drugs.
She’s seeing the fallout in her program, which offers those who had been criminalized for cannabis possession training in the business skills necessary for thriving in the cannabis industry.
“We have folks who didn’t get their [cannabis business license], folks who came through our program, and they can’t vote. We have folks with permits who are homeless or are still going through mental health issues,” she said.
Kikka Keith, an established entrepreneur in the food and beverage industry, was swayed by the fanfare about Prop. 64 and the much-touted idea that jumping into the cannabis industry was a way to give back to her community.
‘“This will be your last opportunity to be part of this new industry…Drop what you’re doing, you need to get involved in this,’” Keith recalls hearing. “And I took that call to action seriously, and so did hundreds of other community members.”
Redlining in the cannabis industry
But Keith, who is also the cofounder of the Social Equity Owners and Workers Association,soon realized that the equity program was doomed to fail. “There was never an intention to have a social equity program, because they weren’t funded,” she said.
In Los Angeles, $10 million that was allocated for the social equity program was redirected to law enforcement, which she attributes to the work of lobbyists. That money, she said, could have helped people secure locations for their businesses.
“You have mothers and daughters who sold their grandparents’ homes in order to get commercial properties, because you had to have a property to participate in Los Angeles.”
Keith herself is paying $12,000 a month for a commercial property for her cannabis business. She says this is typical with properties earmarked for use in the cannabis industry, which are five times the cost of other commercial properties, in part because of potential legal issues at the federal level, and also because of a tight market and restricted zoning for commercial cannabis “We can barely get loans for commercial real estate in traditional markets, let alone in this industry.”
And if you want to know how equity is working in the cannabis industry in Los Angeles, she says, just look at the numbers. Out of 187 cannabis dispensaries, only six are African American owned, says Keith.
Sacramento also has made it difficult for people of color to jump into the cannabis industry, according to Seku. There’s currently a lottery for 10 dispensary licenses, and Sacramento, like all cities opting in to the cannabis industry expansion, had the choice of providing applicants with grants or loans, which are funded through cannabis tax revenue. Sacramento went with the loan option, the terms of which are unforgiving.
“If you have the choice as a city or county to do loans or grants to people who have had generational wealth issues, and have had their neighborhoods devastated by those wealth gaps, why would we see a loan program emerge that requires someone to pay that loan back immediately when they've been struggling to find capital all along?” Seku asked. ”There’s no deferments, nothing of the sort.”
Martin says the question of whether loans or grants are more useful really comes down to how well versed someone opening a new venture is in understanding the difference between the two. This is another reason why cities and counties need to provide training to those with no experience in running a business successfully.
Among the solutions the panelists suggested:
- Provide technical assistance to those who are survivors of the War on Drugs to develop the business skills and capital investment acumen to run a dispensary
- Ensure that there’s equity and accountability around hiring within businesses
- Extend the current moratorium on big business stepping into the industry, which expires this year
- Help small businesses organize to develop a united front
An unhappy ending
“I just want to say that there's no real equity in this if people who come from the communities and have had the drug charges and have actually experienced criminalization from marijuana laws are not able to find some type of relief, or some type of reparation,” said Archer, who, in the end, was unable to get a license.
“I just feel like if those people are not in this market, then they’re not talking about equity for Black and Brown people. It’s for somebody else.”
Seku of the Urban Partnership agrees. He says it’s a concern that affects the entire community and serves as a call to action “so that this industry does not become another cotton or tobacco or sugar industry -- or any other industry in America that was built on the backs, pain and suffering and trauma of Black and Brown people.”
Watch a recording of the webinar here.
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