NORML Joins Civil Rights and Criminal Justice Groups To Support Small Cannabis Businesses

The Marijuana Justice Coalition, which is made up by groups including the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, Human Rights Watch, the ACLU, the Drug Policy Alliance, NORML, and others, has sent a letter to Congressional Leadership requesting that small marijuana businesses be able to access the emergency relief funds being administered by the Small Business Administration. The Coalition letter focuses on the need for small business access to the SBA relief funds as an avenue to protect the progress that has been made by minority entrepreneurs in the emerging legal cannabis marketplaces. “Now more than ever, if we are to provide pathways of opportunity and ownership for communities that have been historically targeted and marginalized under the senseless and cruel policies of marijuana criminalization, Congress must protect these small businesses in order to ensure a level playing field in these emerging markets,” we wrote. “Financial relief must be extended to these businesses that a majority of governors and other government officials have deemed “essential” at this moment.” For generations, the criminalization of marijuana has been used as a tool of oppression primarily against those in minority communities. Recently released data from the ACLU shows that despite similar usage rates, black Americans were nearly 4 times more likely to be arrested for a marijuana crime than whites. You can read NORML’s factsheet on the racial disparity among arrests here. You can read the full letter below. If you support allowing small businesses in the legal cannabis marketplaces to access…

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Source : norml
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