Terrific NBC coverage of African Americans and the modern marijuana industry

Regular readers likely already know that I find extra interesting and important the intersection of marijuana reform and civil rights and social justice issues.  Consequently, I have been especially pleased to see that that NBC has been running a number of article under the banner “Black & Green, A Series About African Americans & the Marijuana Industry.”  This piece, headlined “Post-Legalization Many African Americans ‘Just Say No’ To Marijuana Industry,” is the latest in the series, and it gets started this way:

It’s not surprising that many African Americans are leery about cashing in on the legal cannabis industry. Numerous reports show that the black community continues to pay a high price for it in the criminal justice system even where marijuana is legal.

A 2013 ACLU report noted that on average, a black person is 3.73 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than a white person,” even though blacks and whites use marijuana at similar rates.” Such racial disparities in marijuana possession arrests exist in all regions of the country, in counties large and small, urban and rural, wealthy and poor, and with large and small black populations, concluded the report, touted as the first to examine marijuana possession arrest rates by race for all 50 states (and the District of Columbia) and their respective counties from 2001 to 2010.

“There’s more of a negative stigma surrounding this industry — the [cannabis] culture and religion [in the black community] plays a heavy factor,” says Lakisha Jenkins, president of the California Cannabis Industry Association, which has been a part of the National Cannabis Industry Association (NCIA) since 2013. The Washington D.C.-based non-profit organization billed as the largest cannabis trade association in the U.S., has formed a committee focused on figuring out ways to draw more people of color to the industry. “Since we’re the ones who’ve been incarcerated [the most for marijuana possession and use] it makes it rather difficult [for some people of color] to see it as a positive and viable industry,” says Jenkins, a committee member.

Here are the other notable piece in the series so far: 

Part I: Six Reasons African Americans Aren’t Breaking Into Cannabis Industry

Part II: Capitalizing On Cannabis: Meet Colorado’s Black ‘Potrepreneurs’

Part III: Green Chips: African American Investment in Marijuana Marketplace