Why Michigan’s Recreational Marijuana Industry Isn’t Helping Those Harmed by Drug Policies

Michigan is still grappling with how to implement its new legal recreational marijuana market. And it turns out during the pandemic, the market is booming.

As Michigan’s recreational marijuana market expands, many communities are trying to build social equity measures into their licensing process. The goal is to give people who have been disproportionately affected by harmful anti-drug laws more opportunities to open retail shops.

In order to unpack the equity piece of the new industry, MichMash hosts Cheyna Roth and Jake Neher speak with MLive’s Gus Burns, who has been covering marijuana in Michigan for years.

A lot of areas in the state are trying to figure out how to make the marijuana market available for everyone, but in Detroit specifically, there’s a lot of conversation around this social equity piece.

“There’s basically been a prohibition against marijuana for so long and it negatively impacted a lot of lives with the law enforcement,” said Burns. “And basically, people are, now that it’s legal and turned into a business, they’re trying to get people who were negatively affected an opportunity to benefit from that,” he said. [Read more at WDET]