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'Social equity': Fresno's West Side lost in the war on drugs, and now it hopes a revival will be tie
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/social-equity-fresnos-west-side-lost-in-the-war-on-drugs-and-now-it-hopes-a-revival-will-be-tied-to-marijuana/2019/04/12/64580252-54a5-11e9-8ef3-fbd41a2ce4d5_story.html?utm_term=.eb87769a8fef
FRESNO, Calif. — The West Side loses, often.
It lost to the city’s wealthy north in the competition for school funds. It lost businesses to more stable neighborhoods. It lost children to prison and gangs, including Kayla and Aaron Foster, siblings killed four years apart in an intimate block-by-block war financed by the drug trade.
Now the neighborhood is looking to an element of that war for its revival. The community wants one of its own to receive permission to sell marijuana, a drug the young foot soldiers from the Fresno Hoover gang such as Aaron Foster fought to sell along its streets.
The competition for lucrative retail licenses has been fierce since California voters decided in 2016 to make marijuana legal for recreational use. But Fresno is behind the curve when it comes to cannabis, making it a contested front in the push to ensure the benefits of legal marijuana accrue to those who suffered most in the war on drugs.
“We’re the ones who get sent to prison, and the most unfair thing would be if now the corporations are allowed to come in and make millions selling what sent us to prison,” said Aaron Foster II, Kayla and Aaron’s father and a West Side elder who has been shot multiple times himself. “We don’t want outsiders coming in.”
FRESNO, Calif. — The West Side loses, often.
It lost to the city’s wealthy north in the competition for school funds. It lost businesses to more stable neighborhoods. It lost children to prison and gangs, including Kayla and Aaron Foster, siblings killed four years apart in an intimate block-by-block war financed by the drug trade.
Now the neighborhood is looking to an element of that war for its revival. The community wants one of its own to receive permission to sell marijuana, a drug the young foot soldiers from the Fresno Hoover gang such as Aaron Foster fought to sell along its streets.
The competition for lucrative retail licenses has been fierce since California voters decided in 2016 to make marijuana legal for recreational use. But Fresno is behind the curve when it comes to cannabis, making it a contested front in the push to ensure the benefits of legal marijuana accrue to those who suffered most in the war on drugs.
“We’re the ones who get sent to prison, and the most unfair thing would be if now the corporations are allowed to come in and make millions selling what sent us to prison,” said Aaron Foster II, Kayla and Aaron’s father and a West Side elder who has been shot multiple times himself. “We don’t want outsiders coming in.”
I bet it can be infuriating for people who have lost loved ones or spent time in prison for marijuana-related crimes just to see some other folks get wealthy off legalization. Many folks have trouble getting jobs after having even one nonviolent drug conviction on their record.
Social equity sounds like a good way to level the playing field for these folks and give them a fighting chance.
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