California Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law Thursday a bill hailed by supporters as a way to begin addressing the disproportionate effect the War on Drugs had on minority communities.
Senate Bill 1294, sponsored by Sen. Steven Bradford, D-Gardena, allows local jurisdictions in the state to apply to the Bureau of Cannabis Control for a grant to help minority cannabis entrepreneurs in various ways, such as waiving permitting or license fees and providing technical assistance.
The bill also allocates $10 million to provide that assistance.
And as legalization spreads, established companies in early-adopting states are looking to expand — especially to the East Coast, which is expected to largely legalize in the coming years. Rolling Stone caught up with Peter Barsoom, CEO of 1906 Edibles, a Colorado-based company that specializes in mood-targeting cannabis treats for both the medical and recreational markets. Currently only available in Colorado, they’re moving into both the Massachusetts and Canadian markets next year.
My concern is that the existing proposals serve the state budget and the existing largely white marijuana industry more than the people the existing prohibition injured. Five areas that legalization should cover are:
State officials are currently negotiating on a marijuana legalization bill that could be the most forward-thinking in the country, said Jake Hudnut, Chief Prosecutor in Jersey City, NJ. The bill, if signed into law, would mean the immediate release of inmates serving time for non-violent pot crimes.
“All eyes are on New Jersey right now in this industry. Nationwide, and even to our brothers and sisters in Canada, we’re all looking to see what New Jersey is going to do. To be completely honest with you, there has not been a state yet that has passed legalization or adult use that has gotten it right,” said Wanda James, owner of Simply Pure marijuana dispensary in Denver.
Mayors from some of the largest cities in New Jersey today warned that recreational marijuana dispensaries wouldn’t be welcomed in their boundaries unless people with marijuana convictions were released from jail and their records get expunged.
Mayor Ras Baraka, Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop and Hoboken Mayor Ravi Bhalla met in Newark City Hall to tell lawmakers that those provisions and others needed to be passed in order for them to get behind recreational marijuana.
Signaling a change in state policy dating back over 50 years, Attorney General Gurbir Grewal authorized municipal prosecutors to consider social justice grounds as a basis for exercising discretion to amend or dismiss possessory marijuana cases.
“To the extent permitted by law, a municipal prosecutor should consider the impact of adverse collateral consequences of a conviction based on the specific circumstances or factors presented by the defendant or elicited by the court,” announced Attorney General Grewal.
Mayor Ras J. Baraka today sent a letter to members of the NJ Urban Mayors’ Association asking them to join him in seeking to strengthen the social justice and home rule provisions of legislation pending in the state legislature to legalize adult use of cannabis.
“Let me be the first to say I stand with @rasjbaraka on this,” Fulop tweeted in response to a Baraka press release on social justice reforms pertaining to marijuana.
“The state of NJ needs #Newark , #JerseyCity and urban mayors to be fully engaged to meet their state projections. These provisions outlined here are important to us to move 4ward. Period.”
Baraka’s release came in light of him sending a letter to the NJ Urban Mayors’ Association urging them to join him in calling on the state legislature to reform marijuana laws.
But there's a small, growing movement among cities in legal marijuana states to either reduce sentences or expunge marijuana-related charges from before the laws changed.
“We’ve shifted public opinion so broadly on marijuana ... but we’ve got to also do something about those who have been arrested, incarcerated or otherwise penalized for possession, or use or sale,” says Chris Alexander, the New York policy coordinator for the Drug Policy Alliance.