The New Jersey Minority Alliance, a statewide organization, wants to make sure communities adversely impacted by the war on drugs are not left out of the Cannabis industry if the state approves legislation to legalize marijuana.
Shannon Garner has been reading up on the state's proposed legislation to legalize marijuana, so he can get in on the ground floor to possibly own and operate a cannabis shop one day.
"I'd be willing to try,'' said Garner, 43, a Newark resident. "That's a great business.''
But like many people from urban communities who have been disparately affected by the nation's drug laws, Garner needs a marijuana possession charge expunged from his record.
His incident occurred 20 years ago in Virginia, when he was a college student, but the charge unfortunately remains on the record of this criminal-justice graduate from Elizabeth City University in North Carolina.
Garner, however, is not discouraged from the prospect of getting into the cannabis industry after learning about New Jersey Minority Alliance. This statewide organization has a proposal to make sure nonviolent offenders like Garner and urban communities adversely impacted by drug laws are not left out of the industry.
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Organization members, including one of its co-founders, Dana Rone, who is also the Essex County registrar of deeds and mortgages, offered its plan last week to Sen. Nicholas Scutari, D-Union, who is the lead sponsor of the marijuana legalization bill and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
While there is language in his legislation that attempts to address minority inclusion, Rone said it does not go far enough. The organization believes its Social Equity Program is the answer to ensure equitable ownership and employment opportunities.
Under its plan, communities adversely affected would be given consideration to establish cannabis operations based on their locations and socioeconomic factors. In part, that would include communities with disproportionate rates of arrests for nonviolent offenses, where unemployment is greater than the national average or where families fall below the median income.
"It's an interesting proposal and quite clever, frankly,'' Scutari said. "Theirs tries to achieve the same result as my language, but it's more geographically based and it's more clearly defined as to how you get there.''
It's based on a model that Virgil Grant, co-founder of the California Minority Alliance, helped to develop in Los Angeles before his state legalized adult marijuana use in January.
"For too many years, we have been locked up as black people for cannabis,'' Grant said. "Now that they (states) are getting ready to legalize it, what are we doing to ensure that those same people you have been incarcerated have an opportunity, not to be just workers, but owners and operators?''
Grant knows what he's talking about. He sold weed illegally until California legalized medical marijuana in 1995. By 2008, Grant owned six licensed medical marijuana dispensaries, until the federal government shut him down. Agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration raided his home and businesses, and he was indicted on charges of drug conspiracy, money laundering and operating within 1,000 feet of a school. He was convicted and sentenced to six years in prison.
Released in 2014, Grant still views his arrest as one result of the country's war on drugs. At the time of the raid, federal law prohibited the sale and use of marijuana for medicinal purposes.
Grant, who is considered a change-maker in the industry, has bounced back. He owns three cannabis dispensaries and is determined to make sure "my people are not locked out of the industry,'' after they paid the price behind bars.
The extent of the problem in New Jersey is outlined in a 2017 report from the American Civil Liberties Union, "Unequal & Unfair -- New Jersey's War on Marijuana Users.''
Among its findings, from 2000 to 2013 blacks were about 2.5 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than whites, despite similar usage rates. The disparity became three times more likely in 2013.
Just as troubling, however, was that nine of 10 marijuana arrests were users, not dealers. The report also showed that marijuana possession arrests made up 88 percent of total marijuana arrests statewide.
"That's the guy who has a bag of weed in his pocket,'' Rone said.
Rone contacted Grant to help start a Social Equity Program in New Jersey after she traveled with Scutari to Colorado two years ago to see how the cannabis industry worked in that state, which legalized recreational marijuana in 2012.
Grant, who has been to New Jersey three times to help craft the Social Equity Program, said nine chapters of the alliance group around the country either have the program or are creating one.
"If this becomes legal, this Social Equity Program must be part of the bill,'' said Raymond Hamlin of Hunt, Hamlin & Ridely, a Newark law firm working with NJMA. "That's the only way that we can ensure that folks in disadvantaged communities will be able to benefit."
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State legislators Jamel Holley, D-Elizabeth, and Angela V. McKnight, D-Jersey City, are on board with the alliance. They introduced Scutari's bill in the Assembly on Thursday, with an emphasis on the Social Equity Program.
"This is not us versus them or them versus us,'' Holley said. "This is legislation that everyone can get behind.''
The bill, still a work in progress, is one that Scutari said he'd amend with language from NJMA.
Before meeting with Scutari, Grant taught a class last week in Newark to 50 people interested in how to own and operate a cannabis business.
Lerone A. Jones, 23, of Paterson, was there, having overcome a marijuana arrest and a charge for a controlled dangerous substance six years ago in his town.
"I've proven that your past is your past, but your future holds greatness,'' he said.
After he graduated from Delaware State University with a business degree, Jones started Green Garden Advisors, a cannabis consulting firm. Most importantly, his record was expunged this week.
Garner is not as fortunate.
After his arrest, he said, authorities in Virginia told him that his record would be cleared after he paid a fine and performed community service, both of which he did.
But Garner learned the charge still existed in his 20s during a criminal background check at a Paterson charter school. He lost his job as a teacher's assistant.
"Once you get in trouble, it sticks with you,'' said Garner, a Newark housing authority employee.
But as the marijuana legislation moves ahead, the hope is that the emerging cannabis industry in the state won't hold your past against you.
Barry Carter: (973) 836-4925 or bcarter@starledger.com or
nj.com/carter or follow him on Twitter @BarryCarterSL
