To: Michael Tubbs, Mayor of Stockton, CA, The California State House, The California State Senate, and Governor Gavin Newsom
Governor Gavin Newsom: Fairness in Marijuana Licensing !
Stop the unfair practices in marijuana licensing now!
Why is this important?
Change the licensing fees structure so that they are more affordable to those communities that were hurt most by the draconian drug sentencing of the 1980s and 90s.
The program in Oakland is a good start but it is not working per this article:
https://reason.com/archives/2018/07/19/oaklands-weed-equity-program-not-helping
In the 1920s & 30s my grandfather, along with many black sharecroppers in the Dallas, TX area, were forced to risk their lives by growing marijuana to supplement his meager sharecropping income, due to Jim Crow laws, and were prosecuted for such offenses.
Fast forward to the 1980s and 90s, this country passed a number of laws that increased drug sentencing in black and brown communities that resulted in disparate jail times for non-violent drug offenders based amount and form of the drugs possessed by offenders.
Today many are affected negatively by such laws and are being barred from participating in the new legal marijuana industry because they have drug convictions under the aforementioned unfair laws that were levied against them. In effect, they are being penalized twice by the very laws that we know were unfair at inception. Black and brown communities were decimated by the incarceration under laws we know now to be both racist and immoral.
Therefore, California should continue to be a leader in such reforms by changing the laws in light of past atrocities, and thus allowing these communities, to be able to operate on an equal and level playing field and use the funds from marijuana sales to rebuild their lives and their communities.
Additional articles that support my position:
https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-african-americans-marijuana-industry-20170605-story.html
http://www.drugpolicy.org/issues/race-and-drug-war
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/19/opinion/boehner-marijuana-blacks-prison.html
The program in Oakland is a good start but it is not working per this article:
https://reason.com/archives/2018/07/19/oaklands-weed-equity-program-not-helping
In the 1920s & 30s my grandfather, along with many black sharecroppers in the Dallas, TX area, were forced to risk their lives by growing marijuana to supplement his meager sharecropping income, due to Jim Crow laws, and were prosecuted for such offenses.
Fast forward to the 1980s and 90s, this country passed a number of laws that increased drug sentencing in black and brown communities that resulted in disparate jail times for non-violent drug offenders based amount and form of the drugs possessed by offenders.
Today many are affected negatively by such laws and are being barred from participating in the new legal marijuana industry because they have drug convictions under the aforementioned unfair laws that were levied against them. In effect, they are being penalized twice by the very laws that we know were unfair at inception. Black and brown communities were decimated by the incarceration under laws we know now to be both racist and immoral.
Therefore, California should continue to be a leader in such reforms by changing the laws in light of past atrocities, and thus allowing these communities, to be able to operate on an equal and level playing field and use the funds from marijuana sales to rebuild their lives and their communities.
Additional articles that support my position:
https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-african-americans-marijuana-industry-20170605-story.html
http://www.drugpolicy.org/issues/race-and-drug-war
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/19/opinion/boehner-marijuana-blacks-prison.html