Marijuana Moment: Congressman Is ‘Outraged’ Over Lack Of Diversity In Marijuana License Approvals In New Jersey

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A U.S. congressman wants answers from New Jersey regulators about why none of the 56 marijuana retailer licenses that state regulators have approved have gone to black business owners from communities most impacted by prohibition.

Rep. Donald Payne (D-NJ) said in a press release last week that he’s “outraged to hear that Black-owned businesses have been shut out of the state’s cannabis marketplace,” noting that black people are significantly more likely to face arrests over marijuana despite comparable rates of use among different races.

“New Jersey has a chance to correct this inequality and allow people abused by the system to finally benefit from it with a fair distribution of cannabis business licenses,” he said. “Instead, we are seeing the same inequality with these licenses that we see in marijuana arrests.”

I am outraged to hear that none of the 56 NJ cannabis business licenses were awarded to a Black-owned business. These entrepreneurs have been shut out of New Jersey's cannabis market. NJ needs to end this injustice! pic.twitter.com/ITYIfyMYC3

— Rep. Donald Payne Jr (@RepDonaldPayne) January 28, 2022

While New Jersey’s medical cannabis program has been in effect for more than a decade, the adult-use market has yet to come online as regulators work on implementing a 2020 voter-approved reform referendum.

Gov. Phil Murphy (D) “promised that the state’s cannabis industry would right the wrongs of the past as it concerns social justice,” Payne said. “Now, New Jersey needs to uphold this promise.”

The statement from the congressman’s office comes as African American Chamber of Commerce of New Jersey is also sounding the alarm about the current lack of diversity in the state’s marijuana industry.

Following the vote to legalize recreational cannabis in the state, the New Jersey Cannabis Regulatory Commission (CRC) saw a flood of hundreds of applications to start marijuana businesses. Advocates had hoped that the promise of the reform—to help correct the harms of criminalization that have disproportionately impacted communities of color—would be proactively met.

“Based on conversations I’ve had, with stakeholders, out of the 56 licenses awarded to date, none has been awarded to a Black-owned business. People need to know what’s going on,” African American Chamber of Commerce of New Jersey President John Harmon said in a press release.

“Many Black-owned businesses have been trying to get into the cannabis industry since 2012 when cannabis for medicinal purposes became legal in New Jersey,” he said. “No Black-owned business received a license back then, and none has received a license since the legalization of cannabis for recreational use thus far.”

“The CRC needs to expedite its review and award of the licenses submitted. Minimally, the CRC must immediately score and notify applicants of their conditional status. If necessary, additional resources must be allocated to the license review process so that applicants cease to be adversely impacted financially by an unjustifiably protracted process.”

Payne said that he joins the commerce organization in “their outrage that this inequality continues to plague our state, our society, and our country.”

New Jersey isn’t the only state that has faced pushback from not efficiently meeting equity goals as legal cannabis markets launch.

Illinois, for one, has faced criticism from advocates and lawsuits from marijuana business applicants who feel officials haven’t done enough to ensure diversity among business owners in the industry.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s signed a bill last year that’s meant to build upon the state’s legalization law by creating more cannabis business licensing opportunities to help people from disproportionately impacted communities enter into the marijuana industry. Regulators have since held a series of lotteries to award additional dispensary licenses, but losing companies have since filed legal challenges to the process.

Meanwhile, New York has been taken steps to ensure that equity is built into its adult-use marijuana program that was signed into law last year.

For example, Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) announced this month that her administration is creating a $200 million public-private fund to specifically help promote social equity in the state’s burgeoning marijuana market.

Colorado officials recently announced that the state has achieved a “wildly important goal” of increasing diversity in the legal marijuana industry—but the data shows there’s still a way to go before cannabis business ownership is on par with the state’s population demographics.

Nearly 17 percent of the state’s cannabis businesses are now minority-owned as of January 1, the Marijuana Enforcement Division (MED) reported. Colorado had set a goal of at least 16.8 percent minority ownership in the cannabis sector by June 30, 2022, and that’s already been narrowly exceeded by the beginning of the year.

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Photo courtesy of WeedPornDaily.

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