Black Members on N.J. Cannabis Commission Dissatisfied with Big Weed Social Justice Promises

Now that New Jersey’s legal weed market has been open for nearly half a year, some of the forecasted issues seen in other markets are becoming more visible here. Some on the state’s five-member governing body, the Cannabis Regulatory Commission or CRC, have made it clear they aren’t satisfied with the larger corporations.

Municipal pushback, price-gouging on real estate and lack of access to capital are some of the key issues affecting the growth of the industry. But behind it all is the concept of economic and social justice — healing the harm from the War on Drugs. As baked into state law and underscored by the CRC, the promise entails disproportionately helping those who were disproportionately hurt from that war.

Another major issue, which New Jersey now faces, is the market being controlled by a collection of big companies, which have operated as alternative treatment centers before the market opened up to non-medical-marijuana patients and adult consumers.

These multistate operators, known as MSOs, are making billions of dollars off of a plant that Black and Hispanic people were incarcerated for in the War on Drugs.

“In the legislation, there was a carveout for medical alternative treatment centers or large MSOs to convert to start selling adult-use cannabis,” said CRC Director of Diversity and Inclusion Wesley McWhite III. “Because of that, the CRC had to usher that process in and with ushering that process in we had them come up with social equity plans, patient access plans and supply plans.”

Out of the five-person commission, the only two Black members, CRC Chair Dianna Houenou and Commissioner Charles Barker, have consistently voted or abstained — the politer equivalent of “nay” — against expanding some of those companies.

Barker has been the most vocal critic on the commission. At a September CRC meeting, he also criticized the companies for their track records on helping medical consumers and union negotiations, concerns inherently intertwined with social equity itself.

“As a whole you are not upholding your commitments to patient access, social equity and collective bargaining agreements at this time,” he said, referring to the companies at the September monthly meeting. “This must change. It must.”

Black and Hispanic communities within New Jersey, in both rural and urban areas, were among some of the hardest hit collateral damage in the War on Drugs when it came to incarceration, traffic stops and in some municipalities, findings of unconstitutional policing.

The primary promises of New Jersey’s new market was to decriminalize cannabis, expunge records, and implement an economic justice initiative of making sure the most harmed and economically disadvantaged communities were healed through robust participation in the market.

On the other end, the cannabis industry has marketed itself as one that cares about communities that were harmed by the Nixon-era drug war.

Curaleaf is New Jersey’s largest cannabis operator. It’s also one of the biggest in the nation. Other big players include GTI, operating as Rise, and Columbia Care with stores under the moniker The Cannabist. Curaleaf and GTI came under criticism earlier this year because info in their filings and investment strategy made statements about favoring markets with limited licenses and oligopolies.

Curaleaf recently touted a job fair initiative in Trenton with a goal of making 10% its hires come from communities impacted by the War on Drugs.

Powerful companies have successfully lobbied legislators and brought lawsuits against licensing schemes that prioritize those disadvantaged communities, said Amber Littlejohn, former director of the Minority Cannabis Business Association.

“There is mass predation going on and really hyper-protectionist practices,” Littlejohn said. “It’s really counterproductive because if you keep people out of the market, they’re not leaving the market, they’re just not going to be legal.”

Large companies that market equity efforts but lobby against them behind closed doors should be held accountable, she said at a late September cannabis event forum in Atlantic City.

“You are the antithesis of equity,” she said. “It doesn’t matter how many webinars you do, it doesn’t matter how many social media Juneteenth posts you put up, it’s not going to change the fact that you are actually working against that. If you are actively working against inclusion in this industry you are not for social equity and no hiring of a Black person to run your social equity department is going to change that.”

The CRC has social equity etched into its emblem and was established with an implicit promise to fight those outcomes.

Much of that fight, however, starts in the Legislature and the beginning phases of how a market is set up, Littlejohn said.

“It should start with medical and absolutely should permeate every part of the regulation, starting with the transition of medical operators to adult-use,” she said.

At the bureaucratic level, the CRC seeks to establish and grow a responsible, regulated medicinal and recreational cannabis industry. By applying those values of safety and equity, the commission has a mandate to center its work around creating and protecting access for patients, the production of safe products, and promoting diversity and inclusion in the industry.

Barker serves as an outlier in a commission in which the rest of its members have ties to local politics of some sort. He comes from U.S. Sen. Cory Booker’s Office, where he worked on cannabis and criminal justice reform platforms.

“I challenge my fellow commissioners to hold expanded ATCs more accountable so that New Jersey’s cannabis marketplace can truly reflect the diversity and inclusion we all want to see,” Barker said at the same meeting.

Barker noted that upwards of $100 million had been made by those companies thus far.

“There are not enough connections to local communities that have been most impacted by the failed drug war, not enough partnerships with organizations that assist these same communities,” he said. “Too few expungement clinics and definitely not enough dollars being committed to the people and communities most harmed by the failed drug war.”

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