Who is Weed An “Essential Service” For?
Last month, Illinois Governor, J.B. Pritzker, issued a stay-at-home order to residents along with a list of essential businesses that could remain open.
Grocery stores, pharmacies and doctors offices made the list along with liquor stores and dispensaries. The entire city let out a collective sigh of relief because if they are going to take away our neighborhood dive bars and lakefront walking paths, they have to at least let us get twisted.
Well, some of us.
When cannabis became legal in Illinois this year, there was already a growing concern over who would reap its rewards. It always ended up being the same group of people who benefit: rich white people. The first 11 licenses issued in Chicago to sell cannabis were given to existing medical cannabis dispensaries, all owned by white men. Many people noted the irony of majority-white people profiting off the now-legal industry after people of color made up a disproportionate amount of the estimated 34,000 records with low-level drug offenses eligible for expungement in the state of Illinois at the start of 2020. Clearly, there’s still work to be done before weed is truly equitable.
Now that Chicago is under lockdown, this inequity is becoming even more obvious. While some are celebrating that dispensaries are open and ready to make their sheltering-in-place more comfortable, residents who live in public housing and renters who have an anti-weed landlord don’t have the privilege to use this essential service.
Before the quarantine, the laws were clear: no smoking in public, landlords could still prohibit the use of cannabis in their buildings, and because it’s illegal at the federal level, residents living in any public housing receiving federal money were out of luck.
If you live in public housing or have a landlord who really hates the devil’s lettuce, you risked fines and even eviction.
The only people who were fully protected to enjoy legal weed before, during and definitely after, are homeowners. In Chicago, 74.1 percent of white households own their home while only 39.1 percent of black households do. Yet weed is now considered an essential service. If weed was truly an essential service, Benny the Bull would make a PSA telling landlords to mind their own damn business.
There are currently 63,000 low-income households on federal housing assistance in Chicago and another 17,000 in suburban Cook County who all risk consequences for lighting up. Evictions in the state are halted until May 18 at the earliest, but when time is up the stress of this pandemic isn’t going to disappear. Many of these people are being denied access to a safe, effective way to cope with this stress and other legitimate medical problems. Cannabis, food and beverage are on the same line in Pritzker’s Stay at Home Order, State representatives are calling for weed delivery services bills to be streamlined. There’s an executive order to extend the deadline for pot business applications.
Clearly the state of Illinois and its lawmakers see the value in providing legal cannabis to residents.
Now is the time to expand this service to those who are being hit the hardest by the pandemic.
Rental companies followed every restaurant, hair salon and TJ Maxx in sending emails about “amping up cleaning procedures” full of empty promises that they are doing everything in their power to combat COVID-19. Twitter is full of frustrated renters joking about the countless reminders they’ve received to pay rent early and how easy it is to sign up on the online portal to pay. My rental company even unlocked all the change drawers in the washing machines and dryers so we can touch their grimy little quarters! Thanks for the free laundry, but it is the literal least you could do!
My back hurts. I’m stressed. I can’t afford to visit all the doctors I need to visit to get a medicinal card right now. My free-trial of daily burn is almost up and I’m going to run out of free yoga classes to stretch out my bad hips.
I need a legitimate way to relax and so does everyone else.
We are all worrying about how we will eat when our already paycheck-to-paycheck income sources inevitably lay us off. We are all trying our best so if you, Mr. Rental Company, are also really trying to do your best, promise you will not send me a $200 fine for smoking a fat blunt out of the windows you continue to refuse replacing.Mr. Rental Company, I know you can’t give me a free month of rent because that would make your heart grow three sizes, but just tell me and everyone else in this building we won’t get a fine for smoking weed.
If weed is an essential service in the state of Illinois, it should be treated as such by everyone. Protect citizens from being evicted due to weed use even after the ban is lifted, make record expungement essential during this time so those with non-violent drug charges don’t have to wait any longer, send me a box of pre-rolled joints so I don’t have to bend over my coffee table anymore (remember my back hurts). That would truly be a 4/20 miracle.
