Incorruptible Mass
Incorruptible Mass
33. Cannabis policy for people, not corporations!
Today we talk to Shaleen Title from the Parabola Center, who has been actively involved in the effort to put equity and justice at the heart of drug policy here in Massachusetts. We talk about how our state was early to make marijuana legal through a ballot initiative, but our legislature has been slow to enact the details that would make our drug policy fair.
Shaleen's paper:
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.c...
Parabola Center's resources:
https://www.parabolacenter.com/resour...
Jordan Berg Powers, Jonathan Cohn, and Anna Callahan chat about Massachusetts politics. This is the audio version of the Incorruptible Mass podcast, season 4 episode 33. The video version is available here.
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Hey everybody, thanks for being here. Welcome to incorruptible mass. Our mission here is to really help you understand state politics. So we cover why it is so broken, what we can have, if we fix it, and how you can get involved. So today we are talking about drugs, specifically cannabis, and we have an amazing guest today Shaleen Title. Let me first let our regulars say who they are, and we'll say the best for last. So, Jonathan Cohen,
Jonathan Cohn:yeah, Jonathan Cohn. He him his kind of an activist based in Boston for progressive issue and electoral work here in Massachusetts.
Anna Callahan:And Jordan Berg Powers.
Jordan Berg Powers:Jordan Powers I also use he him his an activist based out of the western area.
Anna Callahan:I am Anna Callahan. She her coming at you from Medford. And yeah, we have Shaleen Title, who is the co founder of the parabola center. Before you even introduce yourself, I love the quote on your site that says cannabis policy for people, not corporations. Shaleen, tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do.
Shaleen Title:Thank you just want to say first that I love your show. It's such a good balance of venting that I find really cathartic and then optimistic. What we can do, and it's it's a very hard balance to pull off. But let me compliment you on that. So my name is Chalene title. I'm also an activist primarily in drug policy and marijuana. I've been doing that for about 20 years. And I spent from 2017 to 2020, as a regulator for the Cannabis Control Commission implementing marijuana legalization in Massachusetts,
Anna Callahan:who amazing. So we would love to dig a little more deeply into this legislation here in Massachusetts. Tell us a little bit about where are we right now legally on campus.
Unknown:So we're reaching about five years of legal marijuana in Massachusetts. So we passed by ballot initiative, decriminalization of possession back in 2008. In 2012, we got legal medical marijuana, and in 2016, we got legal marijuana, meaning anybody over 21 can purchase it from a store and possess it. So that's where we are. The past five years have been trying to implement this law so that it would be fair and equitable, and respectful of consumers who are doing something that's legal, just like any other citizen, and making sure that we catch up other laws to make sure that for example, workers, tenants, people who are using marijuana legally are not unfairly being punished for it. So that's where we've been focused on I think we have a long way to go. And of course, marijuana is still federally illegal. So that leads to a lot of inconsistency between state and federal law that we try and find fixes for.
Anna Callahan:Yeah. And so you said that it passed in 2015? By a ballot question. And can you tell us a little bit about how what has happened? So that hasn't been valid question 20 in 2016. Thanks, Jonathan. That passes by valid question, and then that still has a ton of like, legislation has to be written and it all the details worked out. So how has the state legislature been doing in terms of working out? That the thing that obviously the people of Massachusetts want?
Unknown:Bad? The answer is, the state legislature has been doing? Surprised and YouView? I will say. So this was written the initiative was written in 2015. It passed in 2016. At the time, it was very progressive. And we were watching at that time, what was happening in the first states to legalize Colorado, Washington, Oregon. And we were finding that it was the same large white LED corporations that dominate every other industry that were dominating the new marijuana industry as well. And of course, that seemed deeply unfair, given that it's black and brown people that have suffered for generations by the drug war and been targeted by it. So Massachusetts, along with California was the first state to try to intentionally address that. Again in 2016. That was groundbreaking. For me, watching it, it was really optimistic. I still kind of see this as a vision of how well the Statehouse could work, because the initiative had already passed. The legislature had to pass something, you know, so we didn't see a lot of those problems. ones that usually talk about and many leaders in the state at the time Ayana, Presley, Tito Jackson, Sonia Chang Diaz, they came out very vocally making sure that the new commission would have to make sure that the industry was fair for people of color for veterans, for farmers, for people all around the state who are disadvantaged. And so it was a very good start. However, in the ensuing five years, we've seen no fixes fixes are usually very common for regulating agency. The Commission has asked for those fixes, and none of them have been passed or even voted on.
Jonathan Cohn:Could you give us an example of some of the some of the fixes I know one thing that never ultimately got through the legislature, but was discussing I believe, and kind of an inversion of what tends to happen, the house, put it push it forward that the Senate did was run, as reforming the host community agreement process was one thing that the Commission had been had been asking for.
Unknown:Exactly. So every business has to be licensed by the state, but they also need some form of local approval. And what we saw was that many cities and towns were actually I would say, going beyond the law, by taking things in exchange from the business, getting things paid for. And it was very unfair because smaller businesses, minority owned businesses that this law was meant to protect, they can't compete, you know, and they can't pay what the cities and towns are asking for. So the Commission asked the legislature to pass something so that the commission would explicitly have the authority to enforce this and make sure that cities and towns are acting lawfully. It also went all the way up to the Supreme Judicial Court, who wrote in an opinion that clarity is really needed here. And it passed that bill passed the House in the last session, it has not been voted on by the Senate. I'll give you one more really important example. The participants that are getting extra assistance and benefits from the state to get their businesses up and running people who have been disproportionately harmed by the drug war. They're called Social Equity Program participants, they aren't able to get loans because of the federally illegal status. And so the only people who can go through this process successfully are people who can get money from friends and family. So you can imagine, you know, it's a very privileged group. There are many states that have addressed this by creating financing funds from cannabis tax revenue. So we brought in, at this point $2 billion of revenue in the marijuana industry in Massachusetts, there's a 20% tax. So there's plenty of money for a fund like this, many other states have it. And so that would be a really good bill to pass is another thing that commission has explicitly asked for, and it's another thing that the state legislature has not taken us.
Jordan Berg Powers:Sorry, you. If you're listening on the podcast, you can't see us all shaking our heads a disappointment. Yeah,
Anna Callahan:yeah, that sounds like you know, the, the bill, they were kind of forced to do it, right? Five people. But they've just fallen down totally on the basic implementation, once you get into something, that's when you see what actually happens, and that it's very normal to have to update these things, based upon what you see on the ground. So as well as,
Jonathan Cohn:as well, as one thing, I'll just tag into that as well. That I know that you've talked about is how the world of policy has changed since since 2016, and 2017. And that like, as people who existing habits are like a progressive political space. But what there's a central position that what we're talking about about progressive policy, in any year should be in advance of what it was five years ago that like that, like there shouldn't be no stasis when it comes to when it comes to policymaking that both in terms of being able to respond dynamically and equitably to what exists in the real world.
Unknown:That's so true. It's been really embarrassing, honestly, because I didn't pay that much attention to Massachusetts politics. I've been working on marijuana. And so what I saw in 2016, I did not realize was such an anomaly. And these past five years, we've seen us just being stuck in this time warp. not moving forward not being progressive, you know, in accordance with our reputation. But I do appreciate the opportunity to talk about this because the fixes are really simple. And we have seen, especially in marijuana, so many little wins, and I think and big wins across the country. And I think the theory of change is really podcasts like this, where you can just break down for people long term, the changes that we need to make and how we can do it, and then short term, how we can get around how messed up everything is. And then the second piece, I think, is really making the issue understandable for people who don't have time to pay attention to every single issue. I've written a paper on this with Ohio State University, that just breaks down the social equity and social justice issues with marijuana legalization in 10 pages, really straightforward, what fixes we could have. And then I think the third and maybe most important thing is just celebrating our wins, and having fun making change, which is what we really tried to do in drug policy, because if you don't have fun and celebrate your wins, you're gonna lose your motivation long term.
Jordan Berg Powers:Yeah, and I, I think it's important. You know, I think it's important to touch upon like, where, like, why, like, go backwards a little bit about how we got here, I, you know, I've said on this podcast before, that my first interactions with the police were around the age, my daughter currently is eight years old. And, you know, it was pretty regular, that my friends were having pot put in our pockets, you know, people were, people were, you know, the police would just use it as a pretense, to, you know, harass young black kids. And so, you know, we're not that my father's a lawyer that I sort of knew some things that I like to talk my way out of these things, but most of my friends, were not as lucky. And so if you had the misfortune of being black, in America, in the 80s, and 90s, it was a really bad time that that is like, you know, miles better. But, you know, when we were really going out of our way to try to, you know, to try the so called super predator myth of young black males, there was a real attempt to try to get black and brown kids into the criminal justice system in any way possible. And so, it's important to note that the reason that we need these policies to even out while also being excited that adults can just be adults, and let them sort of make their own decisions about their lives is to is to fix the real harm that was done. And in policy that was created at a time where, you know, drug use was going down in the black community, where it was even its usage, ultimately was even with our white counterparts, but we were being over policed for it, we were being arrested for it, we were, it was being used as a pretense for, for harassment, and ultimately incarceration. And I think also importantly, to note, it is still the only thing the police do. They don't people think the police do other things, but they don't act, they're not geared to do anything except ticket crime, once it happens, and go after, go after drugs, they don't do anything else, they literally barely do. And they don't, you know, if you are if you if you were if you were a victim of a homicide, you may get some resources towards you. But that's basically it. Otherwise, our our police forces are entirely based around police and drug usage. And so in that context, I think it's important to note that when we are structuring how we build out this thing, we need to structure it in a way that recognizes the real harm that was done in my lifetime. Among all the people I knew, and all the people, you know, who have similar stories.
Anna Callahan:Yeah, and not that any policy could, could ever make up for that. Right? No, but
Jordan Berg Powers:we certainly, as we legalize it, we need to, we need to take that into effect. And so what we're talking about is really simple fixes to a to a good law at the time, to better address that as we as we roll this out. And yet our legislature can't do easy fix, right? We're not even asking them to do we're to make it we're asking you, you are it's already been approved, but the people overwhelmingly like it, the world has not fallen down. You know, Massachusetts is still functioning as a state despite epic marijuana legalized in it. We're asking you to do it in a way that recognizes you know, system systematic harm, and do so and just hear what's you know, hear what people are saying has needs help and then make simple changes.
Anna Callahan:And talk just for a second about what it was like back when this ballot initiative was was on the ballot. What was the opposition saying What did they say was going to happen?
Unknown:There was definitely an overblown, I think, warning but Of course, there was also a level of uncertainty, you know, where I think people rightfully had the right to say, let's be a little bit more conservative in the beginning and roll this out slowly and see how it goes. So now five years of data later, we know that there are really I'm not exaggerating, no significant harmful effects from legalization. One way we know that is cities and towns are allowed to charge businesses for the costs that are imposed upon them. And it's written in the law that they need to keep documentation of those costs. There are virtually no costs, maybe there's a traffic study in the beginning and some more security that's needed. You know, when a new popular store opens, that's really been its youth use has not gone up that's consistent with the rest of the country. We're not seeing Oh, actually, let me talk about traffic, and impaired driving for a moment. It reminds me what Jordan was just explaining, it's important to know that racial profiling and racial disparities have actually not stopped. Even though arrests have gone down. Overwhelmingly, the disparities have stayed the same or even increased in some cases. And so we know that police are still being very unfair in their enforcement. And we see things like currently, Governor Baker has a impaired driving bill, which would take away people's driver's license for six months, if they don't agree to a drug test. That's basically just police officer discretion when they're driving. And it's being unfairly portrayed as something that we need, you know, to solve a problem with traffic, fake fatalities, but there's no evidence to support that there is any such problem. And so I kind of see it as a way to bring back some of those arrests to make the police feel like you know, they have something to do, we really don't want to bring back that kind of discretion and those arrests after marijuana legalization has stopped so many of them.
Anna Callahan:Yeah, I mean, it's, it's just so painful to think about all the people who spent years in jail, their lives are ruined for somebody that's literally not even illegal now. Like, how is it possible that we do this to people?
Unknown:In many, many cases, they're still sitting in jail, right.
Jonathan Cohn:And that's the tag on that. And I think it's building off of Jordan's point, that it's one kind of with any kind of policy you both have on the policy going forward. But also the kind of the restoration, restoration and restorative parts of policy of the attempt to under or mitigate past harms. And it is about like, what has been done especially I know that with, I think the social equity fund that they need to actually put money in making sense that was part of that in terms of enabling people who had been involved in the criminal justice system because of the drug war, to be able to create give them opportunities in that industry so that they're not unfairly shut out of that, as well as beyond just that of issues around expungement, etc, of making sure that something that is not currently a crime under law is not something that has the ends of unfairly sticking with people.
Anna Callahan:Can you talk a little bit about the question of expungement, and people's records and how that relates to sort of ongoing and current political things like the governor's race?
Unknown:Absolutely, yeah. So just as a step back, there's three main components of this idea of equity in cannabis. One is the licensing and jobs. It's what the commission mainly focuses on. One is where the tax revenue goes. New York governor just put aside $200 million to help make the marijuana industry more diverse. Those are the kinds of numbers that we're seeing, I think, here we're at maybe 15 million, you know, and that was really hard fought, we just got there last year, we definitely need to increase that. And then the third is the criminal justice reform piece. And again, we're way behind. But the good news is we have a model from other states where governors who had the will to do it, have done mass pardons and help to facilitate mass expungements Technically, there are organizations like Code for America that helped to make this easier when you don't have to go on a case by case basis, which is what the current marijuana expungement law requires and Massachusetts. Instead, you can just figure out a way to expunge all of them. You don't need to find the people track them down, do applications, the records just disappear and of course That helps a lot to help them. The people who have had those unfair records to restore their life back to how it should have been.
Anna Callahan:Yeah, if only we had a governor. It would mean that's really the governor. If they we had somebody who could make that happen. seems only fair.
Unknown:Yeah, I will say too, if you care about the, if you care about the issue of marijuana, you should be paying really close attention to the governor's race. Because it's not just criminal justice reform. There's so many ways that just respecting marijuana consumers and businesses makes such a difference. Governor Baker was the only one who banned all vape products. When we were seeing vaping illnesses from unregulated products. He was the only one that didn't consider marijuana to be an essential business. During the initial lockdowns, there's all of these ways that the governor's discretion makes a huge difference.
Anna Callahan:Yeah. Can you talk a little bit about how Massachusetts fits into sort of a national movement for getting marijuana legalized nationally?
Unknown:Yeah, this is actually the main purpose of parabola center, my drug policy think tank at the moment, because I'm actually quite concerned about federal legalization coming. And us not being prepared for it us meaning all of the states that have legalized cannabis, the problem is the way that federal legalization is being talked about right now. We're expecting it to fix a lot of problems that I don't think that it would fix. And our experience in the state at the state level has shown us that if you don't intentionally address criminal justice, reform businesses jobs, and you don't make things fair, it's very hard to go back and do that. I think that would likely happen at the federal level as well. And then we have an additional problem, which my next paper is on, which is that I think the monopolization of the industry wouldn't be very likely once federal legalization passes, which would undo all of the hard work that we've done in Massachusetts, and all of the fragile progress that we have supporting smaller, disadvantaged or local businesses. So nationally, big picture, it's good news that federal legalization is coming. But we have to be very intentional about making sure that it's a good law, because we won't be able to go back and fix it. If we don't like how it looks after a few years.
Jonathan Cohn:I think that's a really good friend reminds me this is a different issue. But it reminds me of when I was an undergrad. And it was when green building standards were becoming more of a thing. And Georgetown was had buildings that they weren't planning to get LEED certification for. And they're like, Oh, we actually want this now. And it becomes this like the amount of work if you're not have like how much better it is with policy, like from an equity grounds. If you go into it, wanting to build an equity framework that is much easier, it is much cleaner, it is much more effective than having to go after or far into something and then figure out how to grasp that onto a system that wasn't designed with that in mind.
Jordan Berg Powers:I think it's important to note to the undercurrent to at the two things I think about when I think when I agree with you Shailene the is that John Boehner, the former Republican head of the House of Representatives is now running right, of basically, warehousing of money among rich people to not to to sort of hit the ground running, when legalization happens to quickly monopolize and that there are attempts before the industry has even been legalized to create monopolies. Right, there is a rush right now to have your money in the right pot, to centralize it and to sort of destroy that localization possibilities. And you know, to to, and while we're seeing some really great work on equity in Massachusetts, you will also notice that there are chains that have moved it and that these are chains connected to some of those big businesses, some celebrities, right, there are there's already people with money being made richer by this process. So I think unless we are unless we are clear about that, from the get go, we should know that it will be like many of the other things and they're not waiting around, right? Like they're not just waiting, like, oh, we'll wait for it to pass and then we'll figure out how to make money off of it. Right. Like they've already started to line up, how to make sure that they benefit from a system that they've you know, they're like John Boehner, you know, he's Republicans are in power, partially exploiting this right like they are using black and brown bodies as a way to fear monger what white voters have voted for them. And then to then make money on the back end is such a perverse reality that it makes me you know, it's sort of hard to believe we live in that world, but we do.
Unknown:That's absolutely right. But if I, if I want to say one great thing about what Massachusetts has done, they have actually done a fantastic job setting limits so that one company can't own more than three stores. So John Boehner is company only has three stores and Massachusetts, they were caught trying to have more, they were fine. They had to get rid of those. And a lot of those big companies have just left Massachusetts, they're like it's too much of a headache. We're not going to deal with the state, which I'm very proud of. That's fantastic.
Jordan Berg Powers:That's fantastic.
Anna Callahan:And can you just say, a little word about how passing these bills in one state and in another state like is really a roadmap for getting legislation passed? nationally?
Unknown:Absolutely, yeah. So Massachusetts has been a leader on that other states have been leaders in the mass expungement and pardons. We're seeing all of these little models that actually work. And so once we have that data and evidence, we put it together in one federal model that we know works, you know, from our state level experience, we actually know we can have a pretty good thing nationally, and we can have potentially a model for other industries to follow
Anna Callahan:any ways that people can get involved who paved the way for people to get involved with your work or with any of the the national movement?
Unknown:Sure, so the biggest national group is called normal. Been around since the 70s. I always recommend them locally, there's a group called equitable opportunities now, that focuses on cannabis and equity, they can tell you all about the bills that are on the table now and how to work for them. You can follow me on Twitter at Shaleen Title I post all of my parabola center work and my papers and op eds. And I hope people you know, find this stuff valuable, interesting and that you get involved yourself.
Anna Callahan:Amazing. Thanks so much. Your work is fantastic. We love having you on and we look forward to seeing everyone next week. Thanks for having me.