Why Is Medical Cannabis a Racial Equity Priority?

There’s a lot of discussion these days about how to correct the racial inequities caused and reinforced by government policies—especially in major cities, where the gaps are widest. In Oakland, California, an innovative new cannabis equity assistance program is showing one way to do it: The program privileges and prioritizes African Americans in the process for obtaining city medical marijuana businesses permits.

It’s not a vaguely defined “race relations” program that dances around racism by having “public discussions” and “considering meaningful input” from people of color. Instead, it centers the problem—the devastation caused by the war on drugs on black communities—and provides a tangible, financially rewarding, and proportional remedy for those victims. This was the first project out of Oakland’s newly minted Office of Race and Equity, run by Darlene Flynn, who previously helped develop the city of Seattle’s Race and Social Justice Initiative.