In the last several years, the conversation on cannabis legalization has increasingly centered on licensing and ownership as a means of reparations for the war on drugs. But the challenges of this have been staggering – not the least of which difficulties obtaining capital and land to operate in states like California. Our December Drug Researchers’ Roundtable presentation by Dr. Robert Chlala seeks to open new discussions on reparations and a vision for the cannabis economy by centering mostly BIPOC and queer and trans workers in the cannabis industry since the era of medical marijuana. Workers’ perspectives and everyday experiments, including with cooperatives, elicit new conversations regarding reparative justice in cannabis and frameworks to rethink drug decriminalization from a perspective of economic justice anchored in abolition and recognition of where real value is generated.

Robert Chlala, PhD, is a postdoctoral scholar at the UCLA Labor Center & Institute for Research on Labor & Employment (IRLE) whose work is at the intersection of labor, urban development, movement-building and abolition.

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The Drug Policy Alliance envisions a just society in which the use and regulation of drugs are grounded in science, compassion, health and human rights. Help us promote the sovereignty of individuals over their minds and bodies at https://drugpolicy.org/.

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