Oakland’s City Council is on the verge of passing what it sees as reparations for a U.S. drug policy that disproportionately punished people of color — but it’s an effort that might quickly backfire.
As it looks to pass laws this week to regulate the medical marijuana trade within the city, the council is considering rules to make the industry more inclusive of African American and Latino entrepreneurs.
The city will begin to award marijuana permits to people who have or want to start businesses in a trade that is expected to flourish if California eventually legalizes recreational weed. But the city’s ordinances would reserve half of those permits for applicants who fit a narrow set of criteria: Oakland residents who have lived for at least two years in a designated police beat in East Oakland that had a high number of marijuana arrests in 2013; or individuals who were incarcerated in Oakland for marijuana-related crimes within the last decade. Called equity applicants, these individuals must keep at least a 50 percent ownership stake in the business they seek to permit.
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Oakland City Council Considers Cannabis 'Equity Applications'
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