Part 3: Social Equity

The current legal system here in Washington is still less than 10 years old, yet it already has deep systemic and oppression issues. The current proposed social equity program is far from an acceptable solution and frankly a slap in the face to the Black community. The current WA state equity programs suggest taking 35 licenses and handing those to minority owners within Washington State. 35 sounds like a lot, but it is insignificant compared to the total of 2125 licenses in Washington State. That means those licenses represent less than 1.6% of all licenses available. 

Furthermore, those 35 licenses come from White-owned businesses that lost their license due to failure to comply with the Liquor Control Board or straight foul play. In fact, I used to work for a company that lost one of those “equity licenses.” I was working for a company called C&C Company, and the investors wanted to expel the current CEO and usurp the licenses he held. As the Regional Manager of the company, I insisted during one of the company’s meetings that for any transfer of a true party of interest (LCB’s definition of a person who has a legal stake within a licensed WA cannabis business) to happen they must first properly report it to the LCB. Otherwise, we would lose the license. Their response was “you don't know what you're talking about, little black boy,” and they proceeded to go forward with the transfer and ended up losing the license. 

So, the 35 licenses they are seeking to hand out are not “equity licenses.” They are secondhand licenses that they're handing down to black people 10 years after the majority of White-owned businesses have already generated more than $8 billion in gross revenue. Just one store of the Uncle Ike franchise has already grossed more than $14 million dollars since opening in September 2014. Uncle Ike’s, the flagship store, opened up on 23rd in Union. In the middle of one of the remaining historically black communities, their stores are located on the same corner where many people were arrested for selling marijuana and are still in jail for that offense. Now is the time to make a true equity program that can properly address the historical oppression of black Americans and to utilize this new emerging legal cannabis market to heal those historical wounds. 

“The parallels between two American social institutions, marijuana prohibition and slavery, are many: 

1.) millions and millions of people end up in bondage; 

2.) once in the system, you are marked for life; 

3.) a Draconian police state is required to fully enforce laws of either kind; 

4.) in bondage, one loses a citizen’s inalienable rights; 

5.) both social institutions, slavery and marijuana prohibition, are thoroughly racist from their inception to their operation;

 6.) both the slave trade and the marijuana trade create vast profits for the wrong elements in society; 

7.) both social institutions deeply divide and scar America, and prey primarily on people of color, breaking their families apart;

 8.) neighboring countries involved with the ‘trade’ become destabilized; 

9.) the proponents of slavery and marijuana prohibition attract the lovers of incarceration and coercion, who, while defending their flawed and inhumane views from the pulpit and the state house, vigorously resist any re-examination of their “facts” or reasoning; and 

10.) both have disastrous long-term outcomes for America.”

Marijuana Prohibition—America’s Most Tragically Failed Social Policy Since Slavery—20-million Arrested, Countless Lives Destroyed BY ALLEN ST. PIERRE, FORMER NORML EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR POSTED ON FEBRUARY 11, 2009