A New Law Could Help Fix Illinois’ Cannabis Industry Inequities
Program Counsel Akele Parnell joins members of the Cannabis Equity IL Coalition and Nature’s Care West Loop dispensary for a press conference in early March of 2020.
More than a year into cannabis legalization in Illinois, profits from the booming industry (including a staggering $1 billion in sales) have flowed to white-owned companies while Black and Latinx businesses remain shut out of the industry.
Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights is proud to work with the Cannabis Equity IL Coalition to advocate for racial equity measures to make the cannabis industry fairer and more accountable to Black and Latinx communities who’ve been disproportionately harmed by the War on Drugs.
As part of this effort, we helped to craft HB 327, a bill that would give real social equity applicants a fair chance to win an Illinois cannabis business license. Entrepreneurs from the neighborhoods that have been harmed most by the War on Drugs have so far been denied the licenses they need to open business. Instead, our current licensing framework has given exclusive market share to a few corporate medical companies owned by wealthy, overwhelmingly white and politically connected individuals.
On Tuesday, March 16, Program Counsel Akele Parnell joined representatives from the Cannabis Equity IL Coalition, Chicago NORML, True Social Equity, and Rep. La Shawn Ford for a press conference to announce the introduction of the proposed law.
“The plan and legislation we are advocating for is needed immediately to allow racial inclusion in the cannabis business space in Illinois,” said Chicago NORML’s President Edie Moore.
Among other measures, the bill would vastly expand the number of recreational dispensary licenses available to current social equity applicants. And after an initial 1A and 1B lottery, it would also eliminate a current loophole that allows for those who hire social equity workers to qualify as social equity owners.
“For years, cannabis prohibition laws have been used to fuel the mass incarceration and disenfranchisement of Black, Latinx and Indigenous people,” says Program Counsel Akele Parnell. “If legal cannabis can only provide a pathway to wealth for white people, then it’s reinforcing the systemic racial inequities of the War on Drugs. And if that becomes the defining legacy of marijuana legalization, then what progress have we really made?”