Wednesday, November 18, 2015

The Black Lives Matter Movement Is About To Jump Into The 2016 Marijuana Battle

Buzz Feed News ^ | November 17, 2015 | Darren Sands 

Marijuana legalization advocates want the support of Black Lives Matter activists in 2016. But a debate on tactics is brewing legalization groups and Black Lives Matter activists who worry people of color are being left out of the burgeoning legal marijuana industry.


WASHINGTON — Leading up to his meeting with the Black Lives Matter group Campaign Zero at the Frederick Douglass House in September, Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders steeled himself for an argument.
He’d only previously come face-to-face with Black Lives Matter protesters who wanted to interrupt him. But over the course of the meeting, the activists spoke authoritatively on policy recommendations to curb racial disparities in the criminal justice system, while Sanders impressed by synthesizing their talking points on police militarization, community empowerment, and systematic oppression.
The activists brought up one issue, however, that Sanders hadn’t considered: creating pathways for black Americans to take part in the emerging legal marijuana economy, which they said represented unprecedented wealth-building opportunities for people of color.
“He acknowledged that he hadn’t thought about ways to ensure black people had access to the legalized marijuana economy,” Campaign Zero’s policy analyst and data scientist Samuel Sinyangwe told BuzzFeed News. “But he said he was willing to start thinking about strategies to do this.”(continued)
(Excerpt) Read more at buzzfeed.com ...

T-Shirt