How can the US marijuana industry be more equitable? | The Stream

The decades-long war on drugs ravaged minority communities across the United States and as states move to legalize cannabis, many in those communities say they are once again the victims of bad policy.

In 2020, the first year of legal weed in Illinois, the city of Chicago arrested three times the number of African Americans for marijuana offences than all other ethnicities combined.

Illinois passed recreational marijuana use on the promise that it would make sure the industry would not exclude Black and Brown communities, once criminalized, from profiting off the legalization. But the state is not living up to its commitment to build an equitable enterprise. To date there are no majority black-owned dispensaries in Illinois. The state’s failure is the subject of a new documentary by AJ+.

In this episode of The Stream, we discuss those shortcomings and ask what needs to happen to ensure cannabis equity.

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