420 with CNW — NJ Regulators to Only Grant Social Equity Applicants Cannabis Licenses
Social equity has been a major part of America’s state-level cannabis reform over the past decade. People of color were significantly more likely to be arrested for cannabis-related offenses and receive harsh sentences compared to White people throughout the entirety of the drug war despite similar use rates. As a result, entire Black and Brown communities were decimated, sending multitudes of parents and breadwinners to prison for relatively tame offenses and saddling them with criminal records that made it difficult to integrate back into society. Furthermore, entire generations of children were forced to grow up in poverty as their parents…