{"id":4411,"date":"2022-02-24T14:30:41","date_gmt":"2022-02-24T14:30:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cannabisnow.com\/?p=58973"},"modified":"2022-02-24T14:30:41","modified_gmt":"2022-02-24T14:30:41","slug":"are-states-redlining-cannabis-dispensaries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thcinct.com\/?p=4411","title":{"rendered":"Are States Redlining Cannabis Dispensaries?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u201cUrban decay\u201d in America speaks a universal language, a vernacular seen and heard in movies, political ads and in real life. It sounds like this<\/a>: Broken windows, vacant buildings, graffiti-covered walls and doors. Ne\u2019er do-wells loitering outside liquor stores and pornography merchants (less visible in the online era but still a part of this classic trope<\/a>). But thanks to cannabis legalization, struggling areas in America have another feature: legal cannabis dispensaries. The higher concentration of dispensaries in America\u2019s lower income areas may be due to the destructive practice of \u201credlining.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to recent research out of Washington state and published<\/a> in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence<\/em>, along with other elements \u201cpolite society\u201d may deem unsavory, cannabis dispensaries also tend to coalesce in lower-income areas, which in turn\u2014since race so often correlates with class\u2014also tend to be less white. <\/p>\n

The wealthier, whiter areas, by contrast, tend to limit or ban cannabis businesses outright. This in turn fuels a vicious cycle: Because cannabis dispensaries are lumped in with the pawn shops and liquor stores of Skid Row<\/a>, cannabis dispensaries acquire an unsavory reputation\u2014and then they\u2019re shunted towards seedier parts of town in cities that newly legalize. <\/p>\n

This all adds up to a sort of post-legalization redlining\u2014a phenomenon several scholars as well as activists are noticing. <\/p>\n

Though this new research was conducted in Washington, previous studies also found that adult-use cannabis stores \u201care more likely to concentrate in economically disadvantaged areas.\u201d Similar situations are seen across the country. When a city council or county planning department determines the local \u201cgreen zone\u201d\u2014the area of the city declared open for cannabis businesses\u2014that area tends to be an industrial or low-income area. <\/p>\n

\u201cMost cannabis green zones are in low-income areas, and it\u2019s been causing problems for both the residents and cannabis businesses,\u201d said Amber E. Senter<\/a>, an Oakland, California-based cannabis entrepreneur and social-equity activist who co-founded Supernova Women, which advocates for BIPOC participation in the legal cannabis industry (and was not involved with the study). <\/p>\n

Keep in mind how cannabis legalization was pitched to policymakers and the public after decades of cannabis-centered drug war overpolicing and incarceration. The fact that these cannabis businesses are more often than not owned by white investors and entrepreneurs who are extracting revenue that once went to \u201ctraditional market\u201d sellers from Black and Brown communities only further highlights what\u2019s yet another shortcoming in marijuana legalization\u2019s social-justice mission.<\/p>\n

In the study, researchers from the University of Washington and the Oregon Public Health Division surveyed 10,009 people aged 18 to 25 living in Washington state. Surveys were collected from 2015 to 2019. Respondents were asked to report their cannabis use, whether cannabis was easy to access, and whether cannabis was deemed \u201cacceptable\u201d in their community. <\/p>\n

Respondents\u2019 \u201cneighborhood disadvantage,\u201d a metric derived from \u201cfive US census variables,\u201d was also assessed. And \u201cneighborhood disadvantage\u201d tended to indicate weekly or daily cannabis use as well as \u201cgreater perceived acceptability of cannabis use.\u201d People who lived within one kilometer \u201cof at least one cannabis retail outlet lived in census tracts with greater neighborhood disadvantage,\u201d the researchers found.<\/p>\n

Study authors noted it wasn\u2019t immediately clear if people in low-income areas smoked cannabis because that\u2019s where the cannabis was, or if coping with the stresses of living a disadvantaged, over-policed area meant more cannabis use. <\/p>\n

Authors did not respond to emails seeking comment on the redlining of cannabis dispensaries. However, \u201cIf similar findings continue to emerge,\u201d they wrote in their study, \u201cthis may suggest that states should seek to limit the geographic availability of retail outlets in order to prevent population-wide increases in cannabis use and related harms.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cannabis Redlining Explained<\/strong><\/h4>\n

What does de-facto cannabis redlining look like in action? New York State offers an example<\/a>. The state legalized adult-use cannabis last year, but communities had until Dec. 31, 2021, to decide whether to ban dispensaries and consumption lounges. (In a departure from other states, cities and towns could not ban cultivation.) And according to the Rockefeller Institute of Government, about half of the state did pass bans<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Where was cannabis banned? In Westchester County, a wealthy suburb immediately north of New York City and the second-wealthiest county in the state after Manhattan, most cities chose to ban. In St. Lawrence County, the second poorest (ahead of the Bronx), most cities, towns and villages have opted in.<\/p>\n

New York is only the most recent example. In New Jersey, about 70 percent of the state \u201ccompletely opted out of the recreational cannabis industry,\u201d the New Jersey Herald<\/a> reported last summer. Those 98 municipalities that did allow dispensaries\u2014\u201cmostly in South Jersey and Central Jersey,\u201d according to the paper, with working-class and industrial areas in Newark allowed, but not the tonier suburbs of New York City\u2014limited them to \u201cone particular redevelopment area or zone.\u201d<\/p>\n

In New Jersey, at least some areas opted out because they felt the process was moving too quickly, or that they didn\u2019t get enough guidance from the state. But some others associated cannabis with \u201cquality-of-life\u201d issues, like the fear of the Skid Rows described above. <\/p>\n

As Michael Soriano, the mayor of Parsippany-Troy Hills said, redlining (or marijuana zoning), his community \u201cfits what our residents would allow and what our infrastructure had to offer.\u201d And as a cannabis business consultant told the paper, the towns that opted in had lower median incomes and were eager to supplant their budgets with cannabis tax revenue.<\/p>\n

There is nothing inherently seedy about a weed store, in the same way there is nothing inherently seedy about a store that sells liquor. Think of a high-end wine shop. Now think of a neon-lit storefront offering plastic bottles of cheap vodka from behind bullet-proof glass. They\u2019re both in the same line of work; they both have a license from the same state regulator. <\/p>\n

The same is true with cannabis. Yet Americans and American policymakers think differently. Until they do, cannabis stores are victims of a policy that, regardless of intent, falls into the same patterns of behavior of cannabis prohibition. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cUrban decay\u201d in America speaks a universal language, a vernacular seen and heard in movies, political ads and in real life. It sounds like this: Broken windows, vacant buildings, graffiti-covered walls and doors. Ne\u2019er do-wells loitering outside liquor stores and pornography merchants (less visible in the online era but still a part of this classic trope). But thanks to cannabis legalization, struggling areas in America have another feature: legal cannabis dispensaries. The higher concentration of dispensaries in America\u2019s lower income areas may be due to the destructive practice of \u201credlining.\u201d According to recent research out of Washington state and published in the journal Drug and Alcohol… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marijuana_information"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thcinct.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thcinct.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thcinct.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thcinct.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thcinct.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thcinct.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4411\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thcinct.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thcinct.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thcinct.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}