In an effort to redress harm from the war on drugs, the city of Los Angeles has revamped its rules for handing out licenses to cannabis businesses.
The rules were passed unanimously Wednesday by the Los Angeles City Council that now tighten the criteria for new applicants seeking to qualify for the “social equity” program.
The program is supposed to ensure that people from communities hit hardest by the war on drugs benefit from marijuana legalization.
“We all know social equity has been a failure, here in L.A. and across most jurisdictions. Too many loopholes … This is the first real hope for social equity to succeed,” said Lynne Lyman. Lyman has been at the front of the Drug Policy Action campaign for the legalization of recreational cannabis in California.
According to critics of the program, the rules were too loose. Previously the program broadly targeted people who have cannabis convictions or have lived in areas with disproportionate arrests for marijuana crimes. Critics had complained that Black entrepreneurs were underrepresented, despite the heavy toll of cannabis criminalization on Black communities.
Department of Cannabis Regulation head Cat Packer said, “We agree that this process needs improvement … and we’ve tried to make our recommendations as reflective as we can of the feedback that we received.”
The city will also change the way cannabis entrepreneurs compete in the next round of licensing for shops.
The last time around, hundreds of people scrambled to the first-serve application system that became embroiled in controversy. Some argued that competitors got an unfair advantage because they accessed the application system before the official launch time. This time the city plans to use a lottery system.
Los Angeles is additionally introducing new rules about when cannabis companies can get permission from the City Council to open their doors in neighborhoods that have already hit limits on the number of marijuana shops.
