The US marijuana industry, despite the forces of evil in Washington that would destroy it, has become a booming, multibillion-dollar player in the economy. Soon, eight states will be fully legalized—not to mention Washington, DC, itself—and there are more on the way. With cannabis production and distribution morphing into a nationwide enterprise, opportunities abound in the green revolution. But before we celebrate, we need to confront a genuine concern: Will people of color and other minorities be left on the outside of the cannabis economy looking in?
The War on Drugs: A Racist Enterprise
It is estimated that only around 1 percent of legal cannabis businesses are owned or operated by minorities. The barriers that prevent inclusion are deeply ingrained—one might say they are systemic—and overcoming them is a formidable challenge. Fortunately, there are groups dedicated to the proposition that, while all men (and women) are created equal, there is work to be done to truly level the playing field of green that is expanding before our eyes.
The War on Drugs has been a racist enterprise from the beginning, punctuated by a rogues’ gallery of creeps from Harry Anslinger to Richard Nixon to Jeff Sessions. Drug-law enforcement has always targeted minorities, even though we’ve known for a long time that drug usage is fairly equal across ethnic groups. The result has been the rise of a racist carceral state that destroys lives, families and entire communities. It would be a terrible irony if the green revolution does not mature into an inclusive enterprise that redresses, to the extent that it can, the inequities that defined prohibition.
We sometimes forget that, while the legal weed market creates jobs, it also erases them. “We have to consider the fact we’re taking jobs away from these folks on