After Biden’s announcement on cannabis and racial equity, what's next?
Governments must actively consider how to keep the price of legal cannabis sales from dropping and then invest that revenue into marginalized communities.
President Joe Biden’s announcement about cannabis policy reform last week underscored how keeping it illegal disproportionately harms people of color. “Too many lives have been upended because of our failed approach to marijuana,” he said. “It’s time that we right these wrongs.”
Biden is pardoning those convicted of simple cannabis possession under federal or Washington, D.C., laws. It’s unclear how many people this will affect, but the figure is certainly in the thousands. He also urged states, where the vast majority of convictions for possession take place, to follow suit, which could have a significant impact. Rand Corp. research found that in Virginia alone, automatically expunging criminal records for adult cannabis possession offenses could affect more than 200,000 individuals, about half of them people of color.
If the goal is to build wealth or invest tax revenue in communities of color, policymakers need to pay close attention to prices.
Biden’s move is an important step in changing the federal approach to cannabis. But governments need to be actively thinking of other ways to right the racial wrongs stemming from decades of prohibition. One approach is to use legalization as a vehicle to help build wealth in communities of color.
Some jurisdictions are considering how cannabis tax revenues could be used to address racial disparities. For example, Evanston, Illinois., is using some of its cannabis tax revenues to support slavery reparations.
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