As someone from SoCal, and from as a PoC from a rough neighborhood affected by the war on drugs. I remember when legalization began, the law said they would have a place for for those affected by the war on drugs to get into the cannabis market. It has been the exact opposite it's still inaccessible!
In order to get the license which is like a liquor license, you have to front over $10K then if you qualify for the waiver the state will reimburse you. No one from these hoods has $10K+ lying around yo do this. Hence why the cannabis market is so white and bourgeois.
And then to read this, it just angers me.
The whole industry is fucked. I used to work on farms and it was always completely whites only. It was always kept somewhat hush from the normal workers but pretty obvious that every single farm owner had someone smuggling out to states that we're still illegal, because that was really the only way to turn a good profit (not that I gave a shit).
After legalization many dropped out due to competition, the rest essentially started using migrant field workers to remain competitive. The only room left for people before was to manage said workers.
Obviously the whole problem with licensing and farming is that the legal rigamarole leaves it impossible for anyone without decent capital to get their skin in the game, and we all know which races in this country tend to have that capital and which don't. So yeah, it's still dominated by white people. I miss the days working out in fields and the sun but honestly even back then it was fairly problematic.
Also the problematic shit went deep. There were tons of libertarian types who saw the wealth they made as an opportunity to exploit farm hands in super gross ways. Like hiring only women to trim half naked and shit. These things happened all over the place and was always targeted at the really desperate people who would flock to nearby towns from farming hubs to the money.
The disgusting misogyny turned me off so fast. I will not put up with that and really enjoyed watching those ppl fail.