Indopedia All Things Marijuana
The War on Drugs has been raging since the ’30s, disproportionately ravaging low-income minority neighborhoods in cities and towns across the country. Los Angeles is the latest city trying to right some of these wrongs, by drafting a new “social equity” proposal that would help victims of prohibition enter the highly profitable recreational cannabis industry.
“For so long, people that were black, people that were Latino, we have paid the price for this business,” LA City Council President Herb Wesson said. “And as we move this into the legal realm, it is important to us that we have a piece of the action.”
California law prevents local governments from giving preferential treatment based on ethnicity or race, so the proposal focuses on low-income residents and those personally affected by the War on Drugs. The proposed social equity program would provide varying levels of assistance to four categories of eligible applicants. Low-income residents convicted of cannabis crimes in California would receive the most aid, followed by the families of those convicted of cannabis crimes, low-income residents of neighborhoods disproportionately affected by the War on Drugs, and…
