In St. Louis in the 1980s, if you got caught with even a “butt of a joint,” you were going to do jail time, said Bob Ramsey, who was an assistant public defender at the time.
Addressing the historic criminalization of Black residents for cannabis offenses has been a big topic of conversation surrounding Amendment 3, the constitutional amendment legalizing recreational marijuana that voters passed in November.
Missouri’s cannabis industry is poised to hit over a billion dollars in its first year of recreational sales — and many believe that people who live in communities that have long felt the brunt of cannabis criminalization should get a piece of the pie. Studies show that it’s largely Black communities.
But the state’s new cannabis regulations that govern the application process has stirred fear that Black Missourians will once again lose out in cannabis licensing.
The state agency that regulates the cannabis program, the Department of Health and Senior Services, released a list of ZIP codes it will consider to have high incarceration rates for cannabis-related offenses. And none are in North St. Louis, where about half of the state’s Black population resides.
Read more at missouriindependent.com