Cannabis social equity programs leave many California entrepreneurs demoralized, depleted
LOS ANGELES — The very thing that had once torn Ingrid Archie from her daughters and led to her incarceration now made her bubble with unbridled optimism.
It was early 2019, a year after recreational pot sales began in California under Proposition 64, and politicians and activists were proclaiming that Archie and others who grew up in communities disproportionately criminalized by the "war on drugs" could now profit off the legal cannabis industry as entrepreneurs.
Buoyed by that promise — "social equity," as it became known — Archie, then in her late-30s, began the process of applying for a retail cannabis license. Years earlier, she'd been convicted of possessing pot for sale. Now, she dreamed of opening a holistic community center in South L.A. that would sell edibles, hold homeownership seminars and provide mental health services. Finally, she thought, a pathway to generational wealth for many in her community.
But Archie hit one bureaucratic hurdle after another. Other equity applicants hired attorneys with expertise in navigating the new cannabis regulations, but she couldn't afford a $10,000 retainer.
"My life was shattered for something that's now legal, and now I have to jump through hoops?" she said. "I felt demoralized."
Five years after California voters legalized recreational cannabis for adults, many cities and counties have yet to adopt programs to boost the chances of success for hopeful Black and Latino cannabis entrepreneurs. In places that have, those programs have been plagued by a lack of funding, shifting requirements and severe delays in processing applications, often creating additional hardships and roadblocks instead of removing them.
A Los Angeles Times review of state data found that equity applicants represented only a small fraction — less than 8% — of all people granted cannabis licenses through the end of 2020 in several of the state's largest jurisdictions.
In addition, local officials around the state created different regulations for licensing cannabis businesses and meeting social equity qualifications. So far, existing medical
