Social equity in marijuana industry still largely fantasy
Terrence Hewing was working for a package delivery company in 2007 when police approached his cargo van in suburban Denver. He was early for a grab, and someone out for a walk called authorities after seeing him napping in the driver's seat. Officers found in regards to a pound of marijuana inside vehicle. That led to a few days in jail, thousands in legal service fees and a felony conviction for drug possession. Hewing lost his job and, because of his criminal record, for years struggled to find housing and a well balanced, well-paying career. "I felt like I was in a particular box in society," he said. "There's persons that don't possess felonies and persons that do.
It certainly makes you almost feel sort of outcast." Hewing, 39, recently became one of just a few Black entrepreneurs to get a business license in Colorado's recreational marijuana industry. His goal is to perform a company that provides the substance that stained his record.
His opportunity may be the consequence of personal ambition paired with Colorado's effort to right past wrongs from the war on drugs. Hewing will enter the marketplace as a so-called social equity operator, licensed under a program that delivers reduced service fees and mentoring to inspire thegrowth of new businesses, especially for Black people arrested or imprisoned for marijuana offenses.Social equity has been a feature for marijuana legalization in lots of states. New York, which last month broadly legalized cannabis use, has set an objective to getting 50% of licenses to minorities and other social equity applicants.
But up to now the goals have far outstripped realities, partly due to legal entanglements as states turn to broaden diversity in cannabis boardrooms, retail shops, production plants and greenhouses.Disappointment with the slow rollout of equity programs has taken on a deeper resonance at the same time when the nation is undergoing a racial reckoning, brought on by cases of police brutality and punctuated this past year by the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
The limited statistics available indicate companies and investors near the top of the booming industry remain overwhelmingly white. In Nevada, about 30% of individuals in the state are Latino and 10% are Black. But the state's first demographic survey of the cannabis industry released earlier this season showed no more than 2% of board members determined as Black and just over 7% Latino.States are making progress toward a far more various marijuana industry but up to now the push for social equity has been plagued with a whole lot of delays and litigation, said Karen O'Keefe, director of state policies at the Marijuana Policy Project.
In some instances, aspiring social equity licensees have already been locked up again, this time in predatory contracts, with profits and control largely in the hands of investors. In others, they've been overmatched in a cutthroat market dominated by international companies valued at millions and sometimes vast amounts of dollars. And sometimes states themselves have been slow to determine and grow programs.Voters in Washington and Colorado in 2012 made their states the first ever to legalize recreational marijuana. But only now are they moving toward greater social equity.
