Last week, marijuana regulators from all over the country met to discuss the current state of social justice in the legalization of cannabis. This was part of the third National Academies Commission meeting on the changes that are occurring as a result of the legalization movement.
The Committee on Public Health Effects of Changes to the Cannabis Policy Landscape held its latest two-day gathering after a couple of previous meetings. It focused mainly on social equity and injustice, such as how marijuana regulatory models have influenced employment and tax revenues, as well as economic indicators and criminal justice interactions.
A panel entitled “State Government Strategies for Social Justice” brought together state-level regulators from New York, California and New Jersey as well as Missouri and Illinois. They discussed how to ensure that the multi-billion dollar industry that is emerging benefits small businesses, communities and those most affected by cannabis prohibition.
Damian Fagan (chief equity officer, New York State Office of Cannabis Management, OCM) began his speech by acknowledging context and social equity. He noted that marijuana enforcement in New York had impacted millions of people, with harsh penalties disproportionately impacting people of color.
Fagan stated: “You’ve got a state that has probably had one of the most brutal histories of prohibitions in the United States.” “Stop and frisk laws, Rockefeller Drug Laws, 1.2 millions arrests over the past 40 years, disparate rates of arrests–more than many other states.”
He added that if you were black in New York, you were 17 times as likely to be arrested for cannabis than a person of color.
Fagan explained that the politically and emotionally charged backdrop, as well as New York’s massive legacy marijuana market are “bumping up against this multi-billion dollar economic opportunity now everyone wants to have a piece.”
Fagan’s presentation linked historical examples to current marijuana policy, noting that whereas alcohol temperance movements in the state were partly grounded in progressive efforts “to emancipate Black communities from the excesses of predatory capitalism,” lawmakers in Albany wrote a cannabis framework “that prioritizes small businesses–community-based businesses that are owned and operated by people from those communities.”
The state has also included provisions that automatically expunge past cannabis offenses. The state has also directed 40% of its revenue to a fund that aims to help disproportionately impacted communities. It has also created incubators for small business and prioritized licensing for these businesses.
Fagan said that officials designed the state’s regulation system to not only prioritize economic development for historically marginalized communities but also so they can “play a role in defining what this legal industry will look like.”
The state-level panel was held on the first day of two sessions last week. It followed presentations by cannabis justice and equity activists, including Jason Ortiz, of the Last Prisoner Project which focuses legal relief for criminal convictions and Shaleen Title who is a former Massachusetts marijuana regulator and now heads the cannabis policy think tank Parabola Center.
A roundtable discussion of local regulators who are also responsible for equity was held after the state presentation. Participants included representatives from the cities of Los Angeles, Pontiac, and Grand Rapids in Michigan, and they discussed how local programs could encourage equity-based business applicants, reduce corporate dominance, and ensure that marijuana advertising does not target minorities.
Other panels at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine’s (NASEM) latest commission meeting concentrated on the harms of cannabis policies as well as public health strategies that can balance the risks and benefits of cannabis use and support those with cannabis use disorders.
Eugene Hillsman (Deputy Director of Equity and Inclusion at California’s Department of Cannabis Control, DCC) noted that equity has become a more common standard in state cannabis laws as the number of states legalized. He noted that California was the first state to have decriminalization provisions and expungement. Other states then copied and improved on these provisions.
Hillsman, Hillsman, said that California changed its expungement procedure early on, from one which required individuals to submit petitions, to a system that placed the burden of identifying and automatically expunging the records on the courts.
Hillsman also cited a $200 million commitment by California to fund local nonprofits and health departments, including for projects like mental health and substance use disorder treatment, job placement, legal services, etc. Hillsman also cited a commitment of $200 million by California to finance local nonprofits and Health Departments. This includes projects such as mental health and substance abuse disorder treatment, job-placement and legal services.
Missouri’s marijuana equity efforts are “not quite as far as” those of New York or California, according to Abigail Vivas. However, the state puts some cannabis revenue towards state expungement and has a “social equity program via the microbusiness program.”
In some states, microbusiness licenses have been adopted as a compromise . For example, in the new Virginia bill that legalizes marijuana, limited licenses for small businesses are given to groups such as veterans, farmers and people living in low-income communities.
Vivas was instrumental in promoting a ballot measure that required Missouri’s constitution to include a plan encouraging people from economically distressed or disproportionately affected areas to own and work in the marijuana business.
She said that the implementation timeline was fast and furious, starting with the approval of adult use by the fall of 2022. “We began sales in February this year and issued our initial microbusiness licenses on October.”
She stated that state regulators “are still in the formative phase of exploring other options for providing assistance and supporting our microbusiness licencees.”
Vivas notes that Missouri’s criminal expungments are not entirely automatic.
She explained that “nonviolent misdemeanors had to be expunged before June 8, and felonies were due by December 8.” However, if anyone is in prison, they must specifically ask for this expungement or petition to be released from prison. These things were not automatically done.
Wesley McWhite spoke on the panel as well. He is the director of diversity, inclusion and equality at the Cannabis Regulatory Commission, New Jersey. This state legalized marijuana in a ballot referendum for 2022.
McWhite stated that “we don’t think of social justice in New Jersey as one program or policy.” McWhite said that New Jersey’s policies are more like frameworks than a single policy. We embed social equity in our administrative practices, outreach practices, and policies we implement.
He said that regulators meet at least once a month with stakeholders and advocates. They have also formed a legacy workgroup to “develop recommendations to assist people who are currently or were previously operating on the unregulated markets to transition to the regulated markets.”
McWhite stated that despite the fact that New Jersey is seeing a lot of progress, and people opening up businesses in all parts of the state, there are some barriers to success. These include municipal obstacles, difficulty accessing capital and the lack of appropriate zoned property.
Erin Johnson, Cannabis Regulation Oversight Officer at the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, stated that the state of Illinois “was intentionally creating a program for social equity which worked to repair harms caused by the drug war.”
She said that in addition to investing one-quarter of the marijuana tax revenues into the Restore, Reinvest, Renew program, which “supports civil legal aid, economic growth, reentry, violent prevention, and youth development”, and expunging over 800,000 arrest records and convictions, the state requires all new licensees within the industry to meet social equity criteria.
Johnson stated that “every license we’ve given out was to someone who lived in an area disproportionately affected or is affected somehow, whether through arrests or convictions of themselves or their family members.” “We are proud of our work.”
She added that the most significant obstacle to equity applications is access to capital. The state is working to address this issue by providing more than 18 million dollars in direct forgivable loan to licensees. It has also allocated an additional $40 million for the current fiscal period.
Johnson noted that the state is working to track the impact of equity efforts. We are currently working on a disparity analysis to identify ways to improve the industry. This will be released early in 2019.
In a Q&A session, Hillsman stated that California has also increased tracking systems, and is “investing a good deal of academic research on economic business conditions” both in regard to small businesses, and equity businesses, which could help policymakers take better decisions.
Fagan said New York had been fortunate to be able to see how other equity programs fared, before creating its own.
He said that New York had the advantage of watching other states implement social equity and seeing what happened. We were then able to create a number of regulations that addressed some of the predatory practices we observed being used against social equity licensees. For example, he stated, requiring designated social equity owners to have full control over their business.
Fagan cited examples of predatory practices in cities like Los Angeles and Detroit. But in recent years, state equity programs also faced challenges with transfers of business licenses to non-equity operators, and “egregious” exploitation of equity applicants. Some claim that business partners have completely cut them out from profits.
In November, the National Academies Committee on Public Health Effects of Changes to the Cannabis Policy Landscape met. The meeting covered a number of regulatory issues including local control, the persistance of the illegal market, gaps which have allowed unregulated business to flourish, market trends of countries where cannabis has been legalized, and corporate and celebrity support of legal marijuana.
In September, , the committee held its first meeting. was attended by representatives from several federal agencies. They discussed evolving cannabis policies.
According to NASEM, the ad hoc NASEM Cannabis Committee is expected to, “provide recommendations to strengthen a harm-reduction approach which would minimize harms of various regulatory models including, but not limited, to social, employment and education impacts, as well as health and safety issues,” and to also issue recommendations regarding “policy research in the next five years.”
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Photo by Philip Steffan.
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