A social justice advocate is criticizing the makeup of New Jersey’s new Cannabis Regulatory Commission because none of its five seats are held by a Black man.
“There’s no one on the commission who has lived experience with the brutalities of the drug war,” said Rev. Dr. Charles Boyer, the founder of the group Salvation and Social Justice. “There’s no one here who knows what it has been like to have been arrested or incarcerated. There’s no one here who was ever in the underground market.”
Governor Phil Murphy announced the final members of the commission on Thursday—days after signing legislation to legalize the sale of marijuana in the state. Its chair, Dianna Houenou, a former ACLU attorney, is Black. The other four seats are held by a Latina, one white woman, one white man, and one Latino man.
