Grant Smith Ellis.com write
After Missed Census Tract Mapping Deadline, First Meeting of Connecticut Cannabis Social Equity Council Concludes With Action Taken On Identifying Areas Of Disproportionate Impact and Establishment of Subcommittees
“I think this day had been a long time coming and I want to thank each and every one of you for agreeing to serve on one of the most important initiatives we are currently undertaking”, said Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont as he convened the inaugural meeting of the state’s cannabis Social Equity Council.
The formal regulatory body met in public for the first time Thursday, and quickly got down to work under the informed and cogent stewardship of Chairperson Andrea Comer, the Interim Deputy Commissioner in the Department of Consumer Protection.
The Social Equity Council itself was created as part of a comprehensive cannabis legalization package that was passed into law by state lawmakers just months ago, in June of 2021, and as of now 3 of its 15 members are yet to be appointed. Nonetheless, having a quorum present today, the Council was able to convene and conduct business.
Speaking at the time the law creating the council and legalizing adult use cannabis was passed, Governor Lamont told members of the press;
As a result, the law Lamont signed (PDF Warning) — after months, if not years, of prolonged negotiations between the Executive Office, lawmakers in the State House and grassroots activists who were intent on ensuring the law was not used as a tool to provide a state sanctioned oligopoly for a small group of existing corporate medical cannabis giants currently operating under the parameters of Connecticut’s medical program — included extensive provisions related to ensuring meaningful pathways to ownership, and substantial economic benefits, for individuals and communities that were disproportionately harmed by a decades long racist drug war.
One of the ways the law envisioned those equity goals being both established, and enforced, was by way of the existence of the Social Equity Council itself, something lauded by advocates and policy makers alike at the time of the bill’s passing as a reflection of lessons learned in other states and a willingness to “get things right the first time around.”
Read more at https://www.grantsmithellis.com/home/history-made-as-connecticut-social-equity-council-meets-for-first-time
