Alexis Bronson thinks the advantage Oakland’s cannabis equity program promised him is shrinking.
That’s because he doesn’t yet have space to grow his clone plants.
Oakland reserved half of its cannabis permits for applicants like Bronson, a black man who’s been cultivating cannabis for more than 30 years. As a teen, Bronson sold weed to his Berkeley High School classmates, but he was hoping that Oakland’s equity program would help launch a successful, sustainable business.
To qualify for the equity program, applicants had to be city residents earning less than 80 percent of the average city income. And they had to either live in a specified high-crime zone for at least 10 of the past 20 years or have been convicted of a cannabis crime in Oakland after Nov. 5, 1996.
The goal was to allow people living in parts of the city disproportionately affected by the failed war on drugs to get to the front of the pack of businesses seeking fortune in California’s cannabis gold rush.
Top photo courtesy of Adobe Stock
