As a substance abuse policy analyst, Jacqueline Kittel is committed to research that addresses health equity, drug policy and human rights. (Submitted photo/Jacqueline Kittel)

By Jennifer Olson

prosperity

Equitable policy reform critical for cannabis industry diversity and growth

Feb 5, 2024 | 7:00 AM

Crucial messages can have a bigger impact when advocacy and academics intersect, and these messages are often the fuel to instigate real change in the world.

According to one Victoria, B.C.-based scholar and activist, amendments are necessary for Canadian cannabis policy to support an equitable industry. Accessible, community-centred business models can ensure a thriving and sustainable cannabis market.

Jacqueline Kittel is a community activist, academic and former cannabis industry professional. While completing her Gender Studies degree, Kitell produced an original work titled “Women in Weed: Gender, Race and Class in the Cannabis Industry”, which was peer reviewed and published in the Arbutus Review in 2018.

As a substance abuse policy analyst, Kittel is committed to research that addresses health equity, drug policy and human rights. Her paper speaks to gender, race and class inequity within the cannabis industry during prohibition, as well as within the current legal framework.

“My research sought to dissect the ways in which the cannabis industry in Canada was legislated to benefit and reinforce white heteronormative capitalist consumption,” Kittel explained.

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“It went on to address how government policy positioned privileged identities to benefit from the newly legalised industry. It is not people of colour, female, or disabled persons who are dominating the industry and that fact is due to the reality that the cannabis industry is situated within a history of oppression and hierarchies.”

Kittel attributes the lack of gender and race diversity in the industry to a history of sexism and racism during prohibition, as well as within current policies and regulations. These policies play a part in preventing marginalised and less privileged demographics from achieving success.

“It is obvious still when we enter cannabis convention spaces filled with white male faces representing countless businesses and corporations,” states Kittel.

“Though they do not make the whole, and the numbers of women and minority owned businesses is growing, the overwhelming majority of whiteness and maleness continues to dominate cannabis today. It will take a continuous and conscious effort not to replicate systems of oppression in the new policies we make to legislate the industry, efforts which are still far from realised.”

Before legalisation, Kittel was employed by a commercial pseudo-medical cannabis dispensary. She was able to witness the business’ transition from operating as a medical to recreational dispensary, which involved an overly complex licensing process.

“At the time, I was aware that an entire team of professionals with MBAs were hired specifically to support the transition to the legal market and to navigate the licensing process. This is the first major barrier to participation in the legal market: it should not require a full team of business experts to get a licence. I have yet to meet any cannabis professional that hasn’t sought third party support to navigate the licensing process.”

Only businesses with capital or the ability to procure sizable loans can afford these professional services; the same services are inaccessible to smaller enterprises.

Kittel also shines light upon the fact that the current Storefront Cannabis Retailer rezoning application is $7,500, regardless of the size of the actual storefront. This creates a significant financial disadvantage to businesses with small storefronts, who are required to pay the same fee as larger businesses. Furthermore, commercial spaces need to be obtained before submitting the licence application.

“In my paper, I argued that the legal cannabis industry is designed to benefit privileged identities with historical access to wealth who are able to haemorrhage money and time waiting for a cannabis licence,” states Kitell.

“The industry is not designed to support or even consider entrepreneurs who rely on their cannabis businesses to operate to feed their families and pay their bills. The costs to participate in the legal market are obscene and are designed from the onset to be inaccessible to those who historically built the cannabis industry, and to be difficult to attain and participate for new business owners in the industry.”

Cannabis producers are required to provide the government with extensive reports, which amounts to an enormous amount of required data from the entire cultivation process, commercial sales and more.

“These costs to meet the government’s requirements to handle this non-lethal plant is an exceptional barrier to industry participation for women and minorities without historical access to capital,” states Kitell.

“It is my view that we are far from having an established and sustainable cannabis industry. Undoing the harms of the war on drugs will require decolonizing our minds and work, taking seriously the work of anti-racism and sitting with the ways in which we all hold unconscious biases we must overcome to create the equitable reality we are striving for. Creating a future of equitable gender dynamics in the Canadian cannabis industry will require an easing of the licensing process, more grants from the government and cannabis industry associations to support women and minorities’ businesses, and a critical lens towards the ways in which the cannabis industry is set to repeat the harms of large scale agri-business.”

Kittel outlines potential solutions that could bring more equity and prosperity to the industry.

“We can learn from our past mistakes elsewhere and put into practice the lessons of centering small scale, diverse, locally based, organically grown community sources of cannabis,” shared Kitell.

“We need more research on how to develop farm-to-table systems to get growers closer to their audiences without the bottleneck of government intervention. We need more research on how to bolster women and minorities’ entrepreneurial skills and to put more money into businesses with a triple bottom line. We need to develop systems for small scale distribution, for sustainable growing systems, for equitable licensing policies, for intervention in municipal bans on cannabis businesses, and for a national framework to prevent cannabis from becoming another overproduced consumer good. By honouring this plant and making it easier for more people to participate, we will all benefit from a more robust, sustainable, and interesting industry than one dominated by the Walmart of Weed.”

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