The train carrying federally legalized cannabis has started to leave the station, as the House has voted both to strike marijuana from the federal list of controlled substances and to sketch the details of what a new regime would entail: an 8% marijuana tax, expungement of pot convictions and loans for start-up dealers. This is legalization rolled up in social equity: Those who are said to have been disproportionately targeted by the war on drugs would gain a measure of compensation. The theory is that people who suffered from drug crime and even those who perpetuated it would benefit from legalization.
On closer inspection, however, such a course fails to take into account how poorer neighborhoods could actually become worse off by distributing licenses and loans to small dealers, because of the risk of concentration of such licenses in disadvantaged neighborhoods. Far better to take steps to limit the number of licenses overall and even consider the possibility that the safest course for legalized cannabis would be a regime controlled by a marijuana version of another legal but harmful substance — tobacco.
