The Gentrification Of Cannabis.

I'll start this out by saying I am white, and have white privilege. I am also queer, low income and disabled, but I still have racial privilege over my BIPOC peers.

I live in the Florence-Graham area of South LA. I can see the 110 freeway and zooming cars from my window. This area is primarily black, latinx and lower income. Cannabis dispensaries come and go here. Some close down the week they open up. We're only a few blocks from a police station, and it's not uncommon to see a dozen cops flooding a small dispensary, taking photos with the goods they've seized.

The clubs/dispensaries around here cater to the lower income folks in the area. The prices are affordable, the cannabis is amazing quality - some of the best I've smoked. I've seen dispensaries around here provide joints for pennies to unhoused folks in pain. I've seen them give a joint to someone who needed to medicate but had no money for merely sweeping the sidewalk outside their place. I've needed cannabis and been short a dollar or two and had the bud tenders pull the dollars out of their tip jars. The kindness in low income dispensaries is endless. We were regulars to a dispensary just down the street from us. They knew us like good friends, they knew all about my wife's seizures. They knew I was autistic, dealing with an OCD and in constant pain. They'd regularly throw in goods for us to try that for free that might help us. Months ago, we watched the police roughly handle our friends at the dispensary, one of which had severe burn injuries on his hands and was still going through surgeries. They didn't care, he is a large black man so even with injured hands, he was a threat to them. I stood on the corner with signs stating my support while the cops laughed at me. I watched them take photos with bags and bags of cannabis just idly dumped together, throwing up middle fingers and peace signs like they were teenage kids who found their dad's stash. They disregarded something that was literally life saving for some as if it were methamphetamines. People from our neighborhood stopped to talk to us, the cops cared less about the white people doing meth, men showing themselves to children, and other far worse things on the street. In their eyes a small club primarily employing BIPOC was far more dangerous.

The dispensary hasn't come back, nor have any of the others immediately around us. I think about the other people who frequented the ones in our area and if they can get something they can afford. Delivery services are often over priced and fancy packaged, as if you're paying for the art, the fancy jars and not even the weed, which is often only mediocre. I've had friends tell me about places in primarily white areas like Santa Monica, only to find cannabis far out of my budget. Not to mention, the weed isn't otherworldly, it's just overpriced. What about the unhoused folks whose joints ache who just need a joint to help them feel some sense of relief? There's nothing left for them. Cannabis in predominantly white areas is seen as trendy, fun, something for everyone (with enough money). These clubs often conveniently leave out lower class minorities. Meanwhile, dispensaries in areas like mine are seen as "illegal", "shady" and obviously HAVE to be breaking the law. HBO and Netflix make deals with clubs in higher income areas rather than invest in communities of color. Cannabis should be accessible for ALL, not just all who can afford some over priced, over marketed dry weed for a rip off.

Cannabis users aren't criminals. Especially not black people, indigenous people & people of color. Traditional medication is often inaccessible, and I am not the only person in the world with a prescription pain killer allergy. I'm judged less for using cannabis than BIPOC with the same issues. At the end of the day, me being white means people are more likely to help me in the end, whilst people of color are judged for cannabis use. People still sit in prison for cannabis "crimes" when white moms do cannabis yoga and giggle over weed tea. It's unbalanced, and cannabis use comes from people of color. Something spiritual, something healing, something very special to many has been slapped on to t-shirts and joked about, stereotyped and slandered. People capitalize on something that can truly help people, and yet they don't give anything back to the people who the cannabis industry was built on. They aren't fighting for the people incarcerated when white folks with DUI's can still drive and harm others. There's not as much judgement when people drive past a dispensary in Beverly Hills, but assumption takes over when they drive by dispensaries here that are actively trying to make a difference. `

If you would like to make a difference for those incarcerated bc of cannabis, you can visit https://www.lastprisonerproject.org/ & https://www.parents4pot.org/