In this episode of CRT2, we discuss state attempts to regulate marijuana commerce while taking account of equity considerations.
On March 31, 2021 the consumption of marijuana in New York State was formally legalized through the passage of the Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act (MRTA). Bill De Blasio, who at the time was serving as the mayor of New York City, described this law as legalizing marijuana “the right way.” New York State has developed a fund to support cannabis businesses run by people who have a history of being victimized and criminalized by the old marijuana laws. We explore the effectiveness and accessibility of these new regulations to find out whether these policies are actually helping the communities they purport to serve.
Featuring
Eli Northrup
Policy Director for the Criminal Defense Practice, Bronx Defenders
“When I started as a public defender, marijuana charges were one of the top cases I would see in criminal court. It was exclusively people of colour that I would represent in the Bronx. The studies show that white people use marijuana just as much as Black people and brown people, but only people of colour were being arrested. Those arrests could trigger serious consequences.”
Alex Anderson
Business Owner
“In 1997 I was convicted of possession of marijuana. Once I got convicted they sent me to upstate New York, to Attica prison. It was a maximum security prison. They put me in a cell. The guy in the cell next to me on my left had 50 to life on a double homocide, the guy on my right had 50 to life on a triple homocide, and I was between them. There was another white individual in the cell with me that came from another community. He got five years probation for the same charge. I got 5-15 years incarceration.”
Mika’il DeVeaux, Ph.D.
Chairman, Cannabis Social Equity Coalition of New York State
“We believe that as a state we can right some of the wrongs with regards to the implementation of the legalization of marijuana in New York that has not been done in any other state.”
“You want to know what the [war on drugs] was really all about? The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”
– Nixon White House official John Ehrlichman
After decades of targeted state violence on black communities in the name of drugs through arrests and incarceration, the states are now in the process of legalizing marijuana. In order to make the cannabis industry more equitable, New York will grant 50 percent of the licenses to sell recreational marijuana to equity applicants,including individuals from impacted communities, minority- and women-owned businesses (MWBEs), distressed farmers, justice-involved individuals and service-disabled veterans, and would support these licensees to sustain and develop their businesses. In November 2022, New York published the names of the first 36 individuals and organizations who are to receive licenses.
In this episode, we explore the state of implementation of the MRTA and the potential hurdles towards achieving an equitable cannabis industry. We spoke with formerly incarcerated activist and business owner Alex Anderson to learn about his interaction with the MRTA. Alex’s experience raises significant questions about the ability of the MRTA to address the concerns and needs of individuals and communities that were worst affected by the War on Drugs.
We think in light of the overall failure of equity provisions in other States and the pivotal role that the war on drugs has played in constructing and criminalizing blackness in America, critical race literacy is crucial to understanding and remedying these issues. In our view, the simplification of the application process for obtaining licenses, clearly laying out the criteria/basis for selection, greater involvement of community based groups in the licensing process, and greater efforts to increase literacy about the reality of the war on drugs may be starting points for this important change.