Op-Ed: How Cannabis Legalization Can Serve as a Model for Racial Justice

…And the Complexities of Retracting the War on Drugs

As we gradually approach federal cannabis legalization, we must begin asking ourselves what we want from the abolition of the war on cannabis. Legalization initiatives in various states throughout the U.S. have presented us with a rare and exciting opportunity- we are able to observe the short-term efficacy of varied policy approaches in action. Each state that offers some form of legalized cannabis access has unique priorities, limitations, definitions, and verbiage incorporated into law. These nuances have tangible effects, and enable informed legislative decision-making going forward if, and only if, we choose to take advantage of the experiential data while contemplating the goals of legalization with an open mind. 

California offers one of the more robust and intricate examples of cannabis legalization so far. About a half dozen cities and counties within California, the top two being Los Angeles and San Francisco, have enacted cannabis social equity policies that are intended to assist people affected by the war on drugs, mass incarceration, and systemic racism to participate within this lucrative industry. On paper, the idea is great, but upon implementation, these cities have experienced several roadblocks. While social equity licensing has enabled ownership for people facing systemic barriers, federal prohibition has created an atmosphere in which these license holders are unable to receive standard bank loans, thus encumbering much needed startup revenue. In fact, several license holders who benefited from the social equity licensing program have had to sell their licenses simply because they cannot afford the exorbitant expenses involved in upstarting and maintaining a business, particularly a tax-and-regulation heavy businesses like cannabis. This was the case with Donnie Anderson, an L.A. resident who acquired a social equity license, but the expenses, coupled with loan acquisition hurdles and long approval times, eventually put him out of business and in debt. 

Going forward, the federal legalization of cannabis has the potential to curtail concerns around venture capital funds and bank loans for equity license recipients like Anderson; but more importantly, federal legalization also presents the opportunity to include social equity licensing in a broader legal framework. 

Reflecting on the history of the war on drugs, and the uniquely valuable opportunity that we have to change history by legalizing cannabis at the federal level, it’s imperative that we deeply ruminate on the motivations that prompted cannabis prohibition in the first place. Legalization is only a step forward from a step backward, and we cannot return all the way forward until we recognize and grapple with the cultural prejudices underlying the origins of cannabis prohibition that still exist today. 

Although the era of prohibition was multi-faceted, racial animosity is a primary culprit for the prohibition of cannabis evidenced and immortalized through the racist publications of Harry J. Anslinger, in which the cultural custom of smoking marijuana was demonized along with “Mexican immigrant foreigners.” Black jazz musicians were also portrayed heinously during the “reefer madness” era and were subjected to dehumanizing fear-mongering tactics intended to sow further disdain for Black people during the era of segregation. Even today, the racially disparate impacts of the war on drugs, particularly with regard to enforcement and sentencing, continue operating in plain sight. We know that Black and white people use cannabis at nearly the same rates even though Black people are 4x more likely to be arrested and prosecuted (on average), which enables cultural stigmatization in which Black communities can be stereotyped as “criminal,” which, in turn, encourages over-policing. This vicious cycle is well-documented and has played out for generations.
Cannabis prohibition invited mass incarceration; it set the stage upon which over-policing, police militarization, and genocidal terrorism have been invited to perform, and it laid the groundwork upon which carceral racism has played out in the judicial system for the past century. We cannot achieve full “legalization” of cannabis until we have a federal initiative that addresses and directly rectifies all of these innate harms. We must address our contemporary xenophobia, we must dismantle immigrant detention facilities, abolish ICE, and facilitate ease of immigration. We must address our over-reliance on police and law enforcement; we must re-shift our focus onto building stronger, healthier, and more resilient communities that make police obsolete. We must pay reparations to Black people for centuries of slavery, segregation, and incarceration. We must encourage people from the intersections of marginalized backgrounds to be the owners and pioneers of the revolution of cannabis legalization through informed legislative action. We’ve learned that drug criminalization is a failed approach, and it’s time that we apply this wisdom to other drugs as well.

Unless we are able to accomplish these goals, cannabis legalization will simply manifest as an opportunity for white business owners to bask in the success of an industry birthed from decades of systemic violence against people of color, while those exact systems of violence continue to breathe.