Think back on the days and nights sitting there with your “buds” smoking pot, solving the world’s problems, and creating fantastical contraptions to smoke with and sell.  Then perhaps misfortune raised her ugly head and you ended up being one of the many arrested and not unlikely if you are black, found yourself away from your family, friends, and the pursuit of happiness and prosperity in many cases for years.  

An example is Derek Harris, a military veteran, arrested in 2008 Louisiana for selling .69 grams of marijuana to a cop.  Initially convicted and sentenced to 15 years in prison was re-sentenced in 2012 to life in prison under the Habitual Offender Law. Derek was eventually released but mainly because of the growing concerns of Covid in incarceration.  His attorney, Cormac Boyle made this comment, “Righting the harms done to a person through incarceration includes supporting their health, housing, and adjustment to their long-deserved freedom…” I feel that the ‘long-deserved freedom” should include having rights restored and in regard to this dissertation the ability to become part of the ‘legal’ industry that has been part of his life.

People who have smoked pot most of their lives have likely encountered police.  If you are one of them and ended up with a felony marijuana conviction you are not going to be a pot entrepreneur because the business has been designed to not allow you in.  My logic would conclude that having a marijuana conviction of any degree would be the exception to the “excluded felony offense.” One would think that perhaps because you were part of the generationally fought battle against the illegality of pot you would be most appropriate for its business. But no… this is not in the legislature.

There is a very viable question of whether this legislature was created to specifically exclude black entrepreneurs from becoming part of this industry.  After all, it is clear that black individuals have historically been disproportionately arrested and subsequently over sentenced for marijuana law violations. The general understanding is that black people are almost four times as likely on average to be arrested for cannabis possession. The American Civil Liberties Union concluded that even though white and black people consume cannabis at “roughly equal” rates, black people are 3.64 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession.

An interesting fact I pulled out of this report is that since 2010 with the increasing number of states legalizing or decriminalizing marijuana this national trend in racial disparities has not diminished.   The ACLU reports that there were actually more arrests for marijuana in 2018 than in 2015. In some states, black people were still six to ten times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession.

My point is, if someone with a felony possession charge wants to legally become part of this growing industry they are not allowed.  Since blacks are disproportionately arrested it would only raise eyebrows and the legitimate question of whether legislature was created to actually stop blacks from becoming part of the cannabis industry.  An industry which according to the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration alone, brought $411.3 million in excise tax, $98.9 million in cultivation tax, and $335.1 million in sales tax, totaling $845.3 million in tax revenue for the third quarter of 2019.  So, an individual with a felony marijuana conviction (predominately blacks) is not afforded the opportunity to becoming involved in something with an estimated economic impact of $77 billion in 2020. Ergo, the effects of the generations-long war on drugs are still prevalent in marginalized communities, particularly communities of color, even when it comes to business opportunities.

As reported in the Marijuana Business Daily, in 2017, black entrepreneurs made up roughly 4.3 percent of cannabis business owners.  Presently marijuana is legal for medicinal purposes in 36 states and completely legal in 15 and the industry is set to continue booming. The opportunity for prosperity is abundant over the board, you’ve done your time and you feel you can finally make some of the money you have talked about for hours during those smokey imaginative spells.  But alas, you are not one of the privileged power players who have made sure they kept it all to themselves.   No, not all the pot but all the money generated from its legality.  Even if you are a young black entrepreneur, have no felony, with degrees and corporate business experience there are still insurmountable obstacles, mostly financing.

Of course, everyone must overcome these extreme financial barriers to enter the industry.  And while most banks won't finance cannabis businesses because it's still federally illegal, costs for even a start-up must normally have to be self-financed or backed by venture capital.  If you're rich and well-connected, you already have the advantage.