Killer Mike Pens a Rolling Stone Piece on the Lack of African Americans in the Cannabis World

Killer Mike has written yet another insightful op-ed for Rolling Stone. This time the rapper is targeting the disproportionate cannabis arrests among African Americans and Latinos resulting in their inability to operate or even work in the cannabis industry due to strict laws for convicted felons. With new ballot initiatives on cannabis laws being put in place and dispensaries popping up all over the country, there is a severe lack of minority business owners in the cannabis field.

With 28 states currently permitting the medicinal use of cannabis and eight states passing the recreational use, the Rolling Stone article projects the cannabis industry to reach staggering figures of $40 billion or more by 2020.

Though the cannabis industry is lucrative one to say the least, it’s who’s benefitting that is cause for concern. Last March, a Buzzfeed study found that of the 3,200-3,400 dispensaries in the country, just one percent were black-owned. Considering that according the ACLU, cannabis use is roughly equal among people who are African American and white, yet African Americans are almost four times as likely to be arrested for cannabis possession. The discrepancy is alarming.

In the article, Mike goes on to outline how and where the war on cannabis started from the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 to Nixon’s unwavering views on cannabis and targeting certain groups associated with the drug in spite of contradicting evidence during the 1970s. Minorities were targeted then, and the stigma has never really left. The Colorado Department of Safety is a clear example of this, as they’ve stated that while there was an eight percent decrease in arrest of white kids for cannabis from 2012-2014, black juvenile arrests shot up by 58 percent, and Latino arrests followed that increase by 29 percent.

The silver lining in all of this are those fighting to reform state laws that prohibit convicted felons, including those convicted of nonviolent crimes from working in the cannabis industry in any capacity at all. With the passing of Prop. 64, California leads the way in reform initiatives by potentially allowing those with cannabis-related convictions to have their record lessened or eliminated completely, and those convicted of nonviolent drug offenses would be allowed to work in a dispensary. Washington, Colorado, Maine and Massachusetts have followed suit in working to take a more lenient stance on cannabis related convictions.