Consider This from NPR - Adding Racial Equity To The Business Of Legal Weed

Episode Date: March 11, 2023

In about the last 10 years, the legalized cannabis industry has grown into a $32 billion business. Today, in 21 states, and the District of Columbia, you can legally purchase recreational marijuana if you are 21 or older. And 37 states have legalized medical marijuana programs. While it's easy to feel that cannabis has come a long way from the scare tactics of Reefer Madness, since 1970's Controlled Substance Act, marijuana has been classified as a drug on par with cocaine and heroin - dramatically increasing penalties for possession, sale, and distribution. Those penalties were enforced in ways that continue to disproportionately target people of color, especially black people. While the same states that once prosecuted the sale of weed are now regulating and taxing it, will those most affected by the punitive frameworks of the past be able to profit too? Host Michel Martin speaks with Devin Alexander, owner of the cannabis delivery business, Rolling Releaf, based in Newton Massachusetts. And we hear from Tauhid Chappell, President of the Philadelphia CannaBusiness Association.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

If you wind the clock back just 10 years, not a single American lived in a state where marijuana was legal. Today, 37 states have legal medical marijuana programs. 21 states and the District of Columbia have legalized recreational marijuana use for those 21 and older. So there's a huge number of Americans that have access to cannabis, either through recommendations from their doctors or being able to walk into a dispensary order online for their recreational use. Heather Cabot is author of the book The New Chardonnay, the unlikely story of how marijuana went mainstream. While possession and distribution is still a federal crime, Cabot says the acceptance by many states of cannabis as a legitimate business, as of last year a $32 billion business, is a long way from

the harsh punishment schemes once imposed by the government. But, she says, the legacy of those regimens lives on, especially when it comes to who was punished, for how long, and why. I think it just really goes back to the origins and the folks who originated a lot of these policies, including Harry Anslinger, who was the first commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, and the guy behind this propaganda that really stigmatized people who used marijuana back in the 30s, in particular, Mexican immigrants that were coming into this country. I mean, he really played off the xenophobia that was happening at that time. And that continued also through the decades to the Black community as well.

What started as a prejudice in the 1930s culminated in 1970 in the Controlled Substance Act, when marijuana was formally classified as a drug on par with cocaine and heroin, dramatically increasing penalties for possession, sale, and distribution. Those penalties were enforced in ways that seemed to target people of color, especially Black people. Jay Williams is host of NPR's The Limits podcast. The ACLU reports that as of 2018, Black people are 3.64 more times likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than white people, despite similar usage rates, a number that has remained largely unchanged, even after cannabis has become increasingly legal around the country.

And having a criminal record has long-term consequences, sometimes for decades. Criminal records for marijuana possession have led to needless barriers to employment, to housing, to educational opportunities. And that's before you address the racial disparities around who suffers the consequences. In October of last year, President Joe Biden pardoned thousands of people convicted of federal marijuana possession. But state-level convictions far outnumber federal convictions. And while some advocates for sentencing reform hope the move will prompt states to follow suit,

others received the news of the pardons as too little, too late. Consider this. Some of the same communities that once prosecuted the sale of weed are now regulating and taxing it. An organization that tracks the cannabis industry, New Frontier Data, estimates that by 2030, legal marijuana sales could grow to $70 billion. But as the industry grows, will those most affected by the punitive frameworks of the past be able to profit, too? Have you seen a state where there's more people of color owning cannabis licenses than white men? Absolutely not. That's coming up.

From NPR, I'm Michelle Martin. It's Saturday, March 11th. This message comes from WISE, the app for doing things in other currencies. It's Saturday, very complicated process. It's a very demanding Philadelphia Cannabis Business Association, a predominantly black-run nonprofit that advocates for and supports African Americans who want to get into the cannabis business. And he pushes for policies that create social equity within the industry. The Philadelphia Cannabis Business Association was kind of a culmination of a lot of cannabis advocates, activists from all parts of the scene coming together and say, we need to collectively work together to ensure that when Pennsylvania legalizes Philadelphia, a primarily

black city, a city that has a 25% poverty rate, it's one of the biggest poorest cities in the country, that people understand what's coming, what legalization means, and how they could kind of successfully participate in this industry, in this market, if they so choose to. Through Canada Business, Chappelle says he saw a way to inform people about how to enter the business. And getting into business can be a challenge. You have to read the law, and you have to understand to a certain degree what the legal lease is like. You have to read a treasure trove of rules and regulations to understand what you're able to do, what you're not able to do, what's in compliance and what's not in compliance. And then you have to actually,

you know, you can do this yourself, but typically a lot of people hire lawyers and financial advisors and writers to look at the application and be able to have sometimes a lot of background information on who you are, what's your business plan, what's your revenue projections, where do you want to work, how would you benefit the community? And it's a very arduous process. Chappelle says he's heartened by the initiatives in some states like New Jersey to create programs to aid those entering the business. They are going to be building out a very lengthy walkthrough of if you want to start a cannabis business, here's every single step that you need to fill. And we're going to offer you experts, mentors, instructors to walk you through

every part of the application so you know what you're getting yourself into. And then in New Jersey, they have the EDA that is going to be coming out with, I think, $10 million in grants, not loans, but grants to help people in the process get an annual cannabis license. But Chappelle says there has been a whitewashing of the drug, by which he means white-owned brands centering themselves and promoting the drug simply as a party drug without spotlighting the medicinal use, as well as the high costs so many black and brown people have paid under the country's past harsh drug laws. There's a lot of pushback and there's definitely a lot of

conversations when we see brands who, you know, use something like Black History Month or Pride to just sell their products without actually directly addressing the harms that these types of communities have faced during marijuana prohibition. It's a lot of just, this is a new commodity that we can just market and try to sell as much as possible. That lacks the context, nuance, and the historical background that I think should always be connected with marijuana so people understand where this plant has come from and where this plant could go in society. Coming up... They don't know how to make it easy on you. It took us three years of licensing to get to this point.

So it's a marathon. That's when we return. My story is just one of many, and there are still, even as I talk to you right now, there are still individuals incarcerated for cannabis. In 2011, Devin Alexander was arrested for distributing and possessing marijuana. But last month, his cannabis delivery business, Rolling Relief, that's L-E-A-F, was licensed in the city of Newton, Massachusetts.

Back in 2018, Massachusetts was the first state to establish a social equity program to benefit those who had been disproportionately marginalized through arrests and imprisonment in connection with the possession of marijuana. I asked Devin to talk about the arrest, how it affected his life, and what his life is like now. Back in 2011, I was a 17-year-old senior at Quincy High in Quincy, Massachusetts, my hometown. And it was February vacation, actually. So we were just hanging around. We were in a car.

We were going to one of my other friends' house. They picked me up in one part of Quincy. They're driving me to another part of Quincy. My two friends in the front just happened to be Caucasian. And you are? African-American. We got pulled over. They tried to say we were speeding, but we weren't speeding.

There was an odor of cannabis in the vehicle. And I was the only one. And they pulled out of the car and searched. And they found three bags of marijuana on my possession, which the total street value is no more than $60. So they arrested me. And I was put in a holding cell for about eight hours. Had to get bailed out and then you just had to keep making court appearances. And I had plans of joining the US Air Force, but due to my arrest, those plans got derailed. So it was really tough to see friends that are going off to college and going off into the military. And then you're just kind of stuck behind trying to figure out what you can really do next with your life. Oh, wow.

You were arrested, but were you convicted? Did you have to spend any time? No, none of it. They tried to offer me probation, but I was still fought it because I felt that that would be an admission of guilt. So we just paid some fines, and then they dismissed her. But it really kind of derailed your plans just having been arrested. Exactly. We went to the recruiter down the street and, you know, me and my mother and we talked to them and told them what happened. It's like, yeah, no, we can't accept you.

So now you have a state-sanctioned delivery business. Can you just tell me a little bit about what it means to you that you can legally do what you were once arrested for? Exactly. Especially doing it on the same streets, too, of Quincy. So we deliver on the same streets that I was arrested on. It's mind-blowing. It is. It's a lot.

It's a lot to comprehend. So that arrest happened when I was 17. I'm 29 now. I'll be 30 in September. I got arrested. People just talked down on me and said I'd never do anything in my life, never go anywhere in life. I kept dealing around with weed. And now I win awards and I do public speaking events. People call me a bright young entrepreneur. I haven't changed anything.

So as I understand it, the social equity program is meant to try to, I guess the phrase I would use is restorative justice. Does it feel that way to you? Do you feel like in a way that it's sort of compensation for the state saying it was wrong? Yeah, but my story is just one of many, and there's still, even as I talk to you right now, there are still individuals incarcerated for cannabis. I feel like they want to look at it as a form of reparations. So in addition, with this new reform bill that was passed last August, the state is going to create what is called the Social Equity Trust Fund, where it's going to be a state-sanctioned trust fund where

social equity entrepreneurs will be able to get small interest loans and grants from the state, and the money gets pulled from the excise tax that they put on cannabis. Massachusetts has brought in over $4 billion in revenue since we legalized in 2016. But there hasn't been any loans. I think a lot of the big model that people look at is Oakland, California. They were doing that with their equity applicants. They're the ones that really put out there,

hey, these people need these low-interest loans and these grants because this is so tough. We can't go and get an additional small business loan. So you're really at the will of private investors. And there's a lot of predatory practices that are going on and still go on today. So having this social equity trust fund is going to be huge for us. That whole question about loans. Cannabis remains a Schedule I drug under federal law.

That means those are drugs that, according to the U.S. government, have no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse. When marijuana was placed on Schedule I at the time, it was seen as partly racist. Critics now look at that and say that that was really intended to offer an opportunity to incarcerate certain people, right? A hundred percent. And it goes back to Richard Nixon, to Ronald Reagan, even all the way back when in the 1930s to Henry Esslinger. African-Americans and Caucasians both use cannabis at similar rates, but the African-American individual with four times more likely to be arrested for it than their Caucasian counterpart. Well, so there are still people who feel that this is just wrong. So for people who feel that

way, is there something you would want to say? Yeah. Look at the number of cannabis deaths. So for people who feel that way, is there something you would want to say? Yeah. Look at the number of cannabis deaths. How many people have died from cannabis compared to stuff that's legal? You go to a local brewery, people bring their kids, their dogs, their wife, drink alcohol that's on the 10% range, load up the car and drive home, and nobody bats an eye. We're very discreet with delivery. It's like we're bringing it, we're giving people incentive to stay home. We're

bringing it right to their front door. You know, there's been so many years of, you know, just saying, no, we're on drugs propaganda. We really have to undo all the miseducation that has come across these past decades. That was Devin Alexander, owner of Rolling Relief. That's R-E-L-E-A-F. It's a marijuana delivery service in Newton, Massachusetts. It's Consider This from NPR. And if I could end on this personal note, I'll be stepping away from Consider This. Don't worry, the podcast isn't going anywhere. And actually, neither am I. I'm moving down the hall and taking on the early shift. I'm going to be co-hosting Morning Edition and NPR's Morning Podcast, Up First.

I'm Michelle Martin. Thank you for listening.