New cannabis legislation is a start to restoring Black America after the War on Drugs – The Real Chi

I became discouraged, as I was on track to earn a Ph.D and go far in my career, Drane recalled about not completing her masters.

But she had not hit bottom. Not until she applied to be an Uber driver but was denied due to being a felon that same year.

Yet, despite the setback, Drane decided to create a new career path for herself. In 2014, the Englewood native, decided to create her own opportunity and founded the Englewood Walk & Run 5K: Ditch the Weight & Guns. At the time of the first 5K race, 4,000 people participated, including former Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel. Drane says, Working out and working within the community was my therapy. I was still using my criminal justice background to empower Englewood to ditch the weight and guns.

Seven years later, another opportunity for a new career path came serendipitously.

After attending National Expungement Week Chicago this past September, hosted by Element 7 and the National Diversity and Inclusion Cannabis Alliance (NDICA), Drane welcomed investors to her community for a tour, which included a potential cultivation center. After the tour, the investors made an offer for Drane to become a social equity partner.

Drane explains, Now, we are partners, and I own 51 percent of the company. I wouldnt have been able to do this without investor partners because the cost to open a dispensary is too expensive.

Barriers to entry into the cannabis industry are multi-faceted, according to Drane. For starters, the cannabis dispensary application is difficult for some people to understand who need support.

The State of Illinois should have done a better job of community outreach, letting the public know where to apply, get help, and financing, Drane comments.

The cannabis dispensary application fee alone is $5,000.

During the December Town Hall Meeting on Adult Use Cannabis Law, in Chicagos Austin neighborhood, State Sen. Heather Steans (D-7th) was asked, How are cannabis dispensary applicants from low-income Black neighborhoods supposed to afford the $5,000 application fee? Steans suggested options including application sliding scale rate, applying as social equity applicant, and Cannabis Business Development Fund.

Dranes story seems like a one in a million, and for many Black Americans who will never experience a full circle moment, that reality appears to be intentional based on the policies created during the War on Drugs.

Its a slap in the face when white communities are profiting from cannabis and people of color have felonies, Drane declared. Black dispensaries, Black cultivation centers, and Black Cannabis Transportation create generational wealth. And we are more likely to give back to our community than White counterparts. My plan is to create jobs for the community.

Although the War on Drugs first impacted Black America many decades ago, its echoes can still be felt today.

In 1971, former President Richard Nixon announced a War on Drugs political campaign. Recently, though, Nixons Domestic Chief Policy, John Ehrilchman, confessed that it was never about the drugs.

During a 2016 interview, Ehrilchman confessed, "The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and Black people. You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or Black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies [and Blacks] with marijuana and Blacks with heroin. And then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did."

Read this article:

New cannabis legislation is a start to restoring Black America after the War on Drugs - The Real Chi