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Cannabis has emerged as a racial justice issue for Black people in America, and it makes sense. After years of atrocious marijuana policies that criminalized and incarcerated Black communities, it only makes sense that the victims of unjust drug laws should now benefit in the form of reparations. This is where society has an opportunity to right the racial wrongs of history as America charts a new path towards drug reform.

Emerging business initiatives from some Native American tribes in the marijuana industry show the potential economic benefits for Black people. For example, the Shinnecock Indian Nation and other indigenous communities are forming partnerships and reactivating ancient trade routes to manufacture cannabis and hemp products based on the traditional medicine of their ancestors. This, as the Mohawk Nation and Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes have dedicated 500,000 acres of land to cultivate cannabis, partnering with the Cherokee Nation for an online marketplace.

The question is whether marijuana legalization and taxation could become an economic development pathway for Black people, in the manner that Native American nations are making it work for them. Perhaps cannabis could even become for Black folks what casinos are for Native Americans.

Cannabis-related taxation and revenue has emerged as part of the debate on reparations policy. For example, the city of Evanston, Illinois is the first in the nation to create a reparations fund from the sale of legal recreational marijuana products. This fund will allocate $10 million over 10 years, and providing cash payments to direct descendants of Black Evanston residents from 1919 to 1969 who experienced racist housing discrimination. Recipients who qualify for the program must use the funds for home down payments, mortgage payments or home repairs. This restorative housing program is a start - though perhaps a drop in the bucket - and only scratches the surface in terms of the reparative economic justice and business development initiatives that could benefit the Black community. New York is considering marijuana regulation and taxation to fund social equity and economic development programs, and Oregon will provide reparations payments to people convicted of marijuana-related offenses over the past 10 years.

In many ways, the public policy debate over weed has come full circle. As pot legalization has become a reality in a number of states, exploring how the Black community should benefit from cannabis is timely, considering that marijuana laws have criminalized the Black community for years and helped fuel mass incarceration. The historical prohibitions on marijuana in the U.S. were racialized from the start. The war on marijuana was designed to block immigrants from Mexico.

“There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the U.S., and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing result from marijuana use. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others,” said Harry Anslinger, the first commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, the predecessor to the Drug Enforcement Administration. Anslinger believed cracking down on marijuana was a top priority because of its “effect on the degenerate races.” “Reefer makes darkies think they’re as good as white men,” he added.

Anslinger’s racist attitudes never went away, and marijuana prohibition swept up Black and Brown communities with the war on drugs, draconian drug laws and mass incarceration - which disappeared a whole generation of Black people. But now, we have an opportunity to change direction and repair the damage that was done to the enslaved and their descendants.





David A. Love, JD - Serves

BlackCommentator.com as Executive

Editor. He is a journalist, commentator,

human rights advocate, a Professor at

the Rutgers University School of

Communication and Information based in

Philadelphia, a contributor to Four

Hundred Souls: A Community History of

African America, 1619-2019, The

Washington Post, theGrio,

AtlantaBlackStar, The Progressive,

CNN.com, Morpheus, NewsWorks and

The Huffington Post. He also blogs at

davidalove.com. Contact Mr. Love and

BC.