“Two months ago, I was staring down the barrel of a gun,” medical cannabis consultant Key Porter said. As she was trying to escape her shop, all she could think about was her son several blocks away.

Last week, Seattle cannabis equity community members spoke at the Seattle City Council Finance and Housing Committee meeting. Like Porter, they shared personal experiences working in the cannabis industry and brought up policies that contribute to cannabis equity.

In Seattle, Cannabis equity is about equity for frontline cannabis workers and BIPOC store owners. BIPOC communities are struggling to get a foothold in the cannabis industry, majority of which is dominated by white men. In 2020, Washington’s Department of Finance and Administrative Services said “42 of Seattle’s 48 cannabis retail stores had white majority ownership, of those 37 by white men.”

To help achieve equity in the cannabis industry, Washington’s Liquor and Cannabis Board established the Social Equity in Cannabis Task Force in 2020. To help BIPOC cannabis owners, the task force seeks to issue unused cannabis licenses to marginalized communities, harmed from the war on drugs.

But the path to ownership includes other, also important day to day issues faced by the industry workers brought together for the taskforce including come to face with a rash of armed robberies in the city.

In the Seattle cannabis equity community panel earlier this month, issues surrounding the cannabis industry such as job protection, equity funds, and the expungement of cannabis records were addressed. Among the topics, store security and training was one of the most common issues from the community panel members.

“I wondered if I had died that night, would there have been laws passed then?” Porter said.  “Would there have been any policies and any reforms that happened then? Would there have been any initiatives revisited then? I honestly don’t know.”

She said a security guard was pistol-whipped, leaving blood “everywhere” in the store.

Budtender and medical cannabis consultant at Ponder Cody Funderburk said their shop was robbed three weeks ago. Funderburk said the robbery represents store security being a prevalent issue across cannabis shops in Seattle.

“One thing that would really scare me isn’t looking down the barrel of a gun. It is what I would do shortly after that,” Belltown Have a Heart budtender Zion Grae said. “I know when someone comes in, you’re supposed to give them everything. I am a prior service veteran and my muscle memory and what goes to how I react is to immediately defend myself and fight for my life. It really scares me the fact that that’s still embedded in me as a reaction.”

He said a cannabis store policy that needs to change is the entry system. Specifically, Grae proposed that double door security entry systems need to be enforced to prevent people from robbing shops. Doors that require people to show ID before entering the store discourages robberies, he said.

Sara Nelson, Finance and Housing Committee councilmember, addressed frontline cannabis worker safety, asking how training should happen.

Grae said cannabis shop owners need to enforce better training by requiring owners to designate funds for training. “There is no policy that requires owners to designate funds for training regarding safety,” he said. Programs, training, and safety provisions can be paid for by revenue generated from cannabis shops but “owners don’t want to cough up this money,” he said.

Funderburk said it would be economical to place security burdens on owners of stores rather than have police intervene. “Police don’t prevent crime, they just respond to it after it happens,” Funderburk said. People can’t rely on the police to prevent crime so proper security measures need to happen upfront, Funderburk said.

Washington state has a 37% excise tax for cannabis, much higher than other states, Nelson said. Because of this, Nelson said that “the competitive disadvantage Washington has, impacts the jobs we can provide and benefits for workers.”

“Adding tax on cannabis would not affect the cannabis market in a way that would deter consumers or prevent job growth,” Funderburk said. Grae agreed with this, saying people will pay for what they want.

Committee member Lisa Herbold asked community panel members to further explain expunging records and how Seattle can help.

“Felony possession carries points. From my understanding, those points can be used against you until 7 years after the probationary period ends,” Grae said. “Those felony convictions for that act won’t be used against you to increase the amount of time in the recommendation window.”

Dyneeca Adams, director for Freedom Project Washington, said that despite marijuana being legalized in Washington, people are still suffering long sentences from marijuana felony possessions. Adams said it is important to address this now because Washington courts are backlogged due to the pandemic.

“It is important that we make processes quicker because there are thousands of individuals who can also be resentenced and released,” Adams said.

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