Marijuana business applicants, advocates call out for more equity in Massachusetts cannabis industry

Laury Lucien, a co-owner of the marijuana retail business Major Bloom in Worcester, said equity applicants that are trying to open a cannabis company in Massachusetts are fighting a unicorn. And that unicorn, Lucien said, is stigma rooted in ignorance and racism.

Lucien pointed back to the 1970 Controlled Substances Act and the anti-cannabis stances of presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan. High rates of incarceration for marijuana, which disproportionately affected Black and Brown people, followed.

“So there was an institutionalized, intended method of creating the system that we have now,” Lucien said. “So when we’re talking about equity, we’re not talking about charity. We’re talking about restorative justice for a government that screwed a whole bunch of people over.”

Lucien was one of several equity applicants working to open a marijuana business in Massachusetts who, along with advocates, spoke during a virtual rally on Thursday afternoon. Four years after marijuana became legal in Massachusetts, with the promise of benefitting minorities harmed by the war on drugs, advocates say there has not been enough done to promote equity in the state’s emerging industry. [Read more at MLive]