Ohio voters recently legalized the recreational use of marijuana by adults. In total, 24 states have legalized recreational marijuana use, and Florida, Hawaii, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin may all soon join these ranks. This metaphorical genie is not going back in the bottle, nor should it because drug prohibition breeds violence and has ruined many lives.
As part of the growing bipartisan recognition that cannabis should be legal and the failed war on drugs has wrongly imprisoned many Americans, social equity programs are increasingly included in marijuana legalization efforts. Social equity programs are intended to deliver restorative justice to persons who were imprisoned or otherwise impacted through the enforcement of drug prohibition policies. Ohio’s marijuana initiative makes it the 17th state to create a statewide social equity program.
Most states, including California, New York, Arizona and Michigan, and cities, like New York City and Oakland, have implemented social equity programs in two ways. First, they reserve a subset of available cannabis business licenses for individuals who meet the legal definition of a “qualified social equity applicant.” These definitions vary, but no jurisdiction identifies them solely as individuals who were arrested or incarcerated for a marijuana-related offense.
Instead, individuals typically qualify for licenses that allow them to enter the legal cannabis industry because they lived in a neighborhood that had disproportionately high arrest rates or below-average income. Persons never directly affected by the drug war can frequently access these benefits on equal terms with those affected. Often, large corporate interests have hired or partnered with individuals who meet social equity criteria to act (often unwittingly) as mere figureheads on license applications.
Hellbound and Down 