My 8/17/22 post covered New Jersey’s regulations of the state’s emerging legal cannabis industry, which is based on reactionary, un-American “social equity” premises. The law favors individuals identified under so-called “disadvantaged” groups like racial minorities, those once incarcerated for marijuana usage, and women. The industry is overseen by the Cannabis Regulatory Commission (CRC), which even has its own Diversity Director.
Apparently, the bigotted structure of the law is not enough for some. On 8/15/22, the New Jersey Star-Ledger editorialized that N.J. promised help for small weed licensees. So start helping already.
The first step toward getting a license to operate a cannabis business is approval by the CRC. But after that, the applicant must get a license from the municipality it wants to operate in, which can cost many thousands of dollars, reaching as high as $50,000 just to open. That’s bad enough. But apparently the unfair favoritism some receive from the CRC based on skin color or gender is still not enough.
Complains Linda Solana, “Charging me the same high amount as everybody defeats the purpose. They just don’t get what social equity really means.”
But I do. This is how open bigotry has become. Unequal treatment before the law is now accepted in NJ. Yes, that’s what so-called “social equity” really means; not fair and impartial, the actual meaning of “equity”, but just the opposite; bigotry, cronyism, legal favoritism, racism, sexism.
The fees are outrageous. No one should need permission from the state, the municipality, or any other governmental entity to start a business or earn a living. But compounding that injustice with “social equity” injustice just compounds the immorality of the regulatory assault on NJ’s weed entrepreneurs. What to do? Fire the CRC’s Diversity Director, outlaw the licensure requirement, outlaw the municipal shakedown fees, and return to America's fundamental Constitutional mandate that forbids any state to “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
Related Reading:
NJ’s Racist, Sexist, Un-American ‘Social Equity’ Cannabis Law
The Permission Society: How the Ruling Class Turns Our Freedoms into Privileges and What
We Can Do About It by Timothy Sandefur
The Growing Horror of Occupational Licensure
It’s Time to End Occupational Licensure for The Objective Standard
In Answer to a Reader about Licensure
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