In the Weeds: Immigrants & NY’s Legalized Cannabis Industry

While the state has celebrated the upsurge of its newest legal commercial sector numerous feel left out no one more so than non-citizen immigrants This story comes to us from Feet in Worlds an independent media outlet and journalism training undertaking that empowers the voices of immigrant journalists Strains of cannabis outside of their cases but behind glass at the legal Emerald Dispensary in Bushwick Brooklyn NY Photo Credit Iggy Monda This story comes to us from Feet in Worlds an independent media outlet and journalism training initiative that empowers the voices of immigrant journalists As a way to welcome the new year New York Gov Kathy Hochul declared on the final day of that New York State s budding cannabis industry had hit a milestone it had produced billion in retail sales And that every single green bill made was legal and clean New York was only the th state to legalize adult-use cannabis when it did so in March with the signing of the Marihuana Regulation and Taxation Act MRTA But New York State s politicians and entrepreneurs had higher dreams than the states that had legalized recreational cannabis before them They saw a future where the state would become the capital of cannabis in more solutions than one The announcement of billion in sales was the state s way of declaring that it is catching up to other big players like California and Michigan while pushing forward equity in the space Besides legalizing recreational cannabis what New York State did with the passing of the MRTA was promise to prioritize people who had been arrested for cannabis-related offenses and targeted by police For decades police disproportionately arrested Black and Latino people more often than white people The NYPD made criminal possession of marijuana arrests in Only of those arrests were of white people while Black and Latino people accounted for of them What we do know and we kind of talked about a lot is everyone uses cannabis at the same rates revealed Dasheed Dawson New York City s first cannabis czar who resigned at the end of March following sexual harassment accusations It is just certain populations Black Indigenous Latinx immigrant populations that have been disproportionately criminalized for that same use In response the state of New York yearned to make sure that the people who were harmed bulk by prior drug policies had a fair inclusive opportunity to participate One of the main goals of New York State legalizing cannabis was to make sure we were leading with equity and equity was at the center and the heart of everything we did mentioned Taylor Randi Lee the Press Secretary for the New York State Office of Cannabis Management That state office was established on the same day adult-use cannabis was legalized New York State made a commitment to expunge non-violent cannabis-related convictions And the state promised that the first group of people to be issued retail cannabis licenses would be those who had been previously convicted for a non-violent cannabis offense namely those in the Black and Latino communities This type of license was called a Conditional Adult-Use Retail Dispensary CAURD License When I read that rule right there I was like oh snap this law is written for me reported Coss Marte one of New York s first CAURD holders Marte grew up on the Lower East Side of Manhattan where drugs were a common part of everyday life He was incarcerated three times in his life for cannabis offenses and at least once for possession of cocaine Once out of prison and following the passage of the MRTA Marte not only acquired his CAURD license to sell cannabis recreationally in his Lower East Side and two other dispensary locations all named CONBUD but he was also able to expunge his prior cannabis offenses Why wouldn t you go backing a Coss Marte inquired Solonje Burnett an entrepreneur and consultant who runs a business called Weed Auntie Why wouldn t you go to these guys who were veritably arrested for either having weed or distributing weed when it was illegal For Burnett supporting businesses run by members of society who were imprisoned for cannabis offenses is beneficial for a myriad of reasons For one it s healthier According to Burnett the people who were reliably selling cannabis know what product is the best quality Legal cannabis dispensaries unlike their unlicensed counterparts have to be tested and approved before they can be sold And Burnett says licensed stores won t sell anything that could be potentially dangerous Me going to this dispensary even though it might be a little bit more expensive than an unlicensed store helps to prop up a safe industry for my population says Burnett Secondly Burnett and politicians will argue that supporting owners like Marte creates jobs for local communities that have been affected by state and city enforcement in the past The governor s office mandates that percent of adult use cannabis licenses go to social economic and equity licensees added Taylor Randi Lee I m proud to say that New York State s at percent The MRTA was considered by a multitude of advocates to be one of the the greater part progressive legalization efforts of cannabis in the country But while it focuses on disenfranchised communities and even veterans and farmers it largely leaves immigrants out of the picture And that s because while cannabis is now legal to smoke and sell in the state of New York it is still illegal at the federal level That means an immigrant who is not a citizen can be charged with cannabis-related crimes even if they are in a legal state or territory So while citizens in these locations can smoke and sell legally without worrying about legal consequences non-citizen immigrants take the hazard of losing their chance at citizenship or residency or facing deportation We have this two-tier system of justice right There s one for citizens and one for immigrants noted Benita Jain senior advisor and federal agenda counsel with the Immigrant Defense Project Rows of cannabis products behind glass at the legal Emerald Dispensary in Bushwick Brooklyn NY Photo Credit Iggy Monda The federal ruling body has linked cannabis with immigrants since even before the country first criminalized it The United States had been producing cannabis since the th century when it was more colloquially known as hemp It was such a common crop that the country s first president George Washington was growing it and colonial Virginia even passed a law requiring every farmer to grow it If they didn t they risked being jailed In the th century major cities like New York would allow for the operation of hash parlors where people could smoke as if they were drinking at a bar But in November Mexican citizen Francisco Madero made a call to arms to overthrow the Mexican leadership spurring on the Mexican Revolution A consequence of that fighting were Mexicans immigrating to the United States Coincidentally around the same time at the beginning of the th century when cannabis-like products were legal and being used in the U S newspapers printed stories about violence around the confines The common thread in these stories were that immigrants from Mexico were routinely high and hurting American citizens including upper-class white women Particular accused these immigrants of gifting cannabis to schoolchildren Other newspaper articles also targeted immigrants from India and the West Indies as a source of all the dangerous cannabis that was coming into the country and seducing the white population into smoking along with them The prejudicial rhetoric continued for decades The movement to make cannabis illegal federally picked up in the s The first two dominos to fall were the creation of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and the naming of Harry J Anslinger as its commissioner in Anslinger made it his mission to outlaw cannabis by any means necessary and to do so he had to convince the populace that cannabis would make the average man dangerous even when out of scientists advised him that his hypothesis had no scientific backing In he testified before Congress his belief on the dangers of the plant but instead of using more colloquial words such as cannabis and hash Anslinger adopted the word marihuana so as to use a more Spanish-sounding term that he could link with Mexicans In his testimony he quoted from a particularly prejudiced-laden letter from a newspaper editor that read I wish I could show you what a small marihuana cigaret can do to one of our degenerate Spanish-speaking residents That s why our challenge is so great the greatest percentage of our population is composed of Spanish-speaking persons bulk of who are low mentally because of social and racial conditions His testimony paved the way for the Marihuana Tax Act of which taxed cannabis so heavily that it made any recreational use impractical Ironically this measure was enacted almost two decades after Mexico itself had already outlawed cannabis Anslinger may not have been able to criminalize cannabis but his mission was completed by President Richard Nixon In Nixon signed the Controlled Substances Act which classified cannabis as a Schedule I drug meaning it would be treated as an illegal substance with the highest prospective for abuse and without diagnostic benefits It set the stage for the War on Drugs he launched the following year which has sustained until in current times The federal ruling body has not long ago began discussing whether or not it should reschedule cannabis away from Schedule I and to Schedule III allowing it to be more accessible And states are trying to reverse policies of th century American leaders policies that have led to millions of people being arrested within the Black Latino and immigrant communities This all comes as a aftermath of a majority of Americans accepting that cannabis is not a danger to a majority of people But while dozens of states have legalized adult-use cannabis Benita Jain explained that immigration laws have only been reinforced by presidents such as Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton As a conclusion of immigration laws passed in but even before that for drug-related convictions revealed Jain a broad range of convictions can trigger immigration detention can outcome in a person being denied lawful permanent residency can consequence in someone with lawful permanent residency being subject to deportation or being unable to apply for citizenship Donald Trump is now this country s president As a upshot deportations are on the mind of numerous in this country including Burnett or the Weed Auntie I m really really worried about what s going to happen in with our deportation dictator coming into power reported Burnett That is his modus operandi President Trump has been relatively positive about cannabis being legalized across the country but his deportation policies are as clear as day He isn t the first president to deport thousands and won t be the first to proceed with deportations based on substances like cannabis Just between and the U S deported over people for marijuana use or possession And so if a non-citizen immigrant wants to join the legal cannabis financial system they must either sell illegally or take great care in taking on a position that doesn t require being directly involved with the product But even that comes with risks Proximity is a peril factor disclosed Jain She mentioned stories of auditing work for a cannabis business installations of safety cameras and even delivery drivers leading to federal scrutiny Our sense is that the closer a person who s working in the industry is to the actual substance the more danger they face Even if the political leaders in the nation s capital reschedule cannabis away from Schedule I it wouldn t help non-citizen immigrants as much as one might think Jain says while that would be a boon to corporations and business owners looking for more tax benefits immigrants would need more drastic action from the cabinet if they wish to legally participate in this new cannabis financial sector as a seller or consumer What we need to do reported Jain is to deschedule marijuana wholly and then have the immigration laws also catch up to us to that Podcast credits Hosted by Shaka Tafari Produced by Iggy Monda Edited by Lushik Lotus-Lee Additional editing by Mia Warren and Quincy Surasmith Fact Checking by Julie Schwietert Collazo Engineering by Jocelyn Gonzales Original theme music by Gautam Srikishan Additional music from Blue Dot Sessions The Hustle show logo by Daniel Robles Special thanks to Scott Foletta and Solonje Burnett Feet in Worlds is supported by the John D and Catherine T MacArthur Foundation The Ford Foundation the Fernandez Pave the Way Foundation an anonymous donor and contributors to our annual NewsMatch campaign The post In the Weeds Immigrants NY s Legalized Cannabis Industry appeared first on City Limits