An individual’s eligibility for participation in the Illinois Adult-Use cannabis program, as a licensed business, requires the acquisition of competitive social equity related application points.
The recent public awareness of state sanctioned deprivations committed against America’s Black community, as described by certain Black Lives Matter activists, brings the demands for social justice and equity in cannabis to the forefront.
Many universities, including DePaul, have supported cannabis prohibition by excluding the drug’s discussion, squashing cannabis related scholarship, and enforcing punitively harsh campus cannabis policies.
Recent DePaulia publications fail to mention the social equity mandate existing at the heart of cannabis legalization in Illinois.
The DePaulia’s persistent past use of the term ‘marijuana’ dismisses the decades of racist abuses and destructive policies associated with the term ‘marijuana.’ Conflating the terms marijuana and cannabis also presents such harm.
We must also act with great intentionality as we share depictions and images of those actively seeking a space in the Illinois adult-use cannabis licensed industry and cannabis non-licensed ancillary business markets.
Equitable or meaningful representations of Black and Brown men and women within every sphere of the emerging cannabis industry must be intentionally pursued as a fundamental pillar of social equity.
Beyond media, equitable and meaningful representations of Black and Brown men and women in cannabis education and cannabis curriculum design must also be seriously promoted.
Postsecondary institutions and outlets must now proverbially reject the present way of facilitating the cannabis industry without a regard for social or economic equity.