By Rebecca Rivas, Missouri Independent
Adolphus Pruitt, the St. Louis City NAACP president and state representative Ashley Bland Manlove from Kansas City are usually on the same page when it comes to racial equality.
On Amendment 3, the constitutional amendment which legalized recreational marijuana, they couldn’t have been further apart.
Both agree that Black communities have long suffered the brunt of marijuana criminalization. Therefore, Black business owners should be able to benefit from a href=”https://www.marijuanamoment.net/missouri-is-selling-4million worth-of weed per day on average with sales reaching a record high in June based on state data/a>. Both believe that Black communities have suffered from marijuana criminalization for a long time, and Black business owners are entitled to benefit Missouri’s soon-to be billion-dollar industry.
They disagreed on whether , the state’s “microbusiness licensing” program (a provision of Amendment 3) could bridge this gap.
According to the website of the state, these small business licenses are “designed to enable marginalized or underrepresented individuals to participate on the legal marijuana markets.”
Bland-Manlove says that even with the microbusiness program in place, the new law will cement a distrusted and inequitable licensing system in place since medical marijuana was approved by the state in 2018. Pruitt’s support for the microbusiness program and other equity measures in Amendment 3 — including expungements of previous marijuana offenses — shows that there is still a divide among social justice leaders about how the recreational marijuana laws will affect Black Missourians.
Listening to KCUR segment
Steve Kraske, the host of the daily public affairs program on Kansas City NPR, asked Bland Mnlove whether she believed that “the lack representation” would be addressed by the microbusiness programme.
She said that this issue was not addressed in the medical cannabis program. “So I don’t think it’s being addressed here.” The same people wrote it so I can’t see any changes being made.
Pruitt countered by saying that equity efforts were not limited to microbusiness.
Pruitt said to Kraske, “It is about expungement.” It’s about leveling playing fields… I don’t want to limit Amendment 3 or its benefits to one section.
Discussion comes as Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services starts accepting application for the Microbusiness Program Thursday. The application period is from August 10 to September 30.
Seven categories are available for people to qualify for a license. These range from having a low income or living in a region considered to be impoverished, to past arrests and incarcerations relating to marijuana offenses.
Pruitt explained the microlicensing system during a KCUR debate. If you or your family were affected by unjust laws in the war on drugs, you are eligible.
He added that people who reside in Census tracts with 30 percent or higher of their population living below the poverty line and where unemployment is 50 percent greater than the rate for the state are also eligible for a license for microbusiness.
You can apply for the program if you have a card of service-connected disabilities from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
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Bland Manlove’s biggest concern, according to her, is the restriction on microbusiness wholesalers. According to the constitution, they are only allowed to cultivate 250 flowering cannabis plants.
She said that if you convert that to pounds and dollars it only amounts to about $250,000 per year. “That is not enough to sustain a business.”
She said that micro-dispensaries could only sell microbusiness products.
She told KCUR’s listeners that they must wait until other micro [cultivators] have grown up their plants before they can sell it.
She said that ownership is also a concern because only the “majority owners” or those who have more than 50% of financial or voting interests, are eligible to apply.
She said that “that leaves a lot more room for people to come on the backside”, people who were already in the industry and people who weren’t of color.
She said that the historical incarceration rates is another category which allows for anyone to benefit from microbusiness licenses, not just underrepresented people. If you live in a ZIP Code with a marijuana offense incarceration that is 50 percent higher than that of the state, then you can apply.
The new cannabis regulations, which go into effect July 30, include these ZIP codes.
Abigail Vivas who is in charge of the microbusiness program at DHSS said that when they tried to compile the list, it was difficult to find a state agency which tracked ZIP codes for where the people incarcerated lived.
Vivas stated that the closest the state could come was to identify the ZIP codes of the courts in which people’s cases are handled.
In the St. Louis region, DHSS identified three ZIP codes: downtown St. Louis which is one of the least residential parts of the city and downtown Clayton which is one the wealthiest suburbs, with an average household income exceeding $200,000. The last ZIP code is for St. Charles where 90 percent of the population, according to census, is Caucasian.
Bland Manlove, referring to this category, said that the majority Black population in Missouri was not included on the map of places qualifying for this category.
Pruitt believes that the map of Census tracts showing high levels of poverty and unemployment will compensate for the lack information on incarceration rate.
Pruitt told The Independent in the past that the NAACP will challenge a license if someone applying solely based on this requirement wins it. This is because the courthouse addresses do not reflect the actual residence as required by the constitution.
The Missouri Lottery will select six license winners in August in each of Missouri’s eight Congressional Districts. This totals 48 licenses, 16 for dispensaries and another 32 for wholesalers. DHSS plans to issue 48 more licenses in 2024 and 48 more in 2025.
Vivas believes there could be 5,000 applicants in the state this year. She’s heard that there could be as many as 1,000 applicants per congressional district.
Bland Manlove said, “That is an awful number.” It should be much more than 48 licenses. “I’m trying to count how many Black dispensaries there are in the United States, but I can only recall one that is on St. Louis.”
According to DHSS there are currently 59 cannabis cultivation facilities, 207 marijuana dispensaries, and 75 manufacturing facilities who hold “comprehensive licenses”. Vivas, who said she would have the state conduct an informal survey to gather demographic data in June, pushed for this department.
According to law, the state is not allowed to issue new comprehensive licenses before June 2024. Pruitt said that, if the state decided to issue more regular licenses for the future then 50% of them would go to holders of microbusiness licenses.
Pruitt stated, “We hope that craft growers will come to us and obtain these licenses. They’ll brand their own products.” They’re going do all kinds of unique and special things. Then they will… hopefully, grow into a comprehensive licence. This is what it’s all about.”
This article was originally published by Missouri Independent.
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The post Missouri Lawmaker and NAACP leader Spar over Marijuana Industry Equity as Microbusiness Licenses Launch first appeared on Marijuana Moment.
