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East County News Service
December 27, 2022 (San Diego’s East County) -- In early 2021, the San Diego County Board of Supervisors directed staff to develop a "socially equitable" cannabis program as the first step towards implementing commercial cannabis at the County level. The County contracted Womxn’s Work Consulting to create a report called the "Social Equity Assessment for Commercial Cannabis."
“I have serious concerns with the assessment we just received,” says Supervisor Joel Anderson in an email sent to constituents. Supervisors received the assessment at the Dec. 13 Board meeting. It includes recommendations for how the County should start issuing commercial cannabis licenses for agriculture, manufacturing, retail, and so-called “consumption lounges” in the unincorporated area. Read the assessment.
Specifically, Anderson objects to the report’s recommendation to prioritize giving cannabis licenses to people who have been imprisoned or deported in the past for cannabis-related crimes. The report notes that poor people and people of color have been arrested at higher rates than affluent white people for cannabis-related crimes, and seeks to provide opportunities in the name of equity.
But Anderson notes, “It's not clear what crimes are included in that— would the County be prioritizing someone who, for example, was deported or sent to prison for cannabis crimes that include weapons charges or armed robbery?”
East County’s Supervisor also objects to a provision that calls for providing County-owned land or buildings at low or no cost for social equity cannabis businesses.
“Should the County be advantaging new cannabis businesses with public subsidies to come into our unincorporated communities? Will the cannabis business owners even be residents of these communities, or will someone from National City be gifted public land to open their pot shop in our East County neighborhoods?” Anderson asks.
Third, he voiced concerns over a recommendation to empower youths age 16 through 25 to become involved in the decision-making processes for this social equity program.
Anderson says, “We are talking about sophomores in high school, who are not of age to vote in our elections, let alone purchase or consume cannabis products. Why would we be asking them to be making policy around a drug that they are not allowed to use? As you can see, there are numerous recommendations in this report that are outrageous, hard to understand, and even harder to support.”
Supervisor Anderson has posted a survey for constituents to voice their views. He indicated that he will share all the input with the County Office of Racial Equity and Justice, who are drafting the ordinance that will come before the board later next year.
The report follows passage of a ballot measure in November by voters, which authorizes taxing any cannabis businesses in the unincorporated areas of the County.
Anderson has previously successfully added language adopted by the Board to require that a portion of any cannabis-related revenues be used in part to beef up law enforcement for crackdowns on illegal marijuana dispensaries, which have been sources of crimes and blights in areas such as Spring Valley, unlike legally licensed dispensaries in neighboring communities such as La Mesa.
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