50+ CALIFORNIA BIPOC CANNABIS ACTIVISTS, PATIENTS, POLICY MAKERS, OPERATORS, AND SOCIAL EQUITY BUSINESSES TO RALLY AT SACRAMENTO’S CAPITOL STEPS ON JUNE 2 AT 2PM WITH MESSAGE TO GOVERNOR:

“For 5 years, our makes an attempt at generational wealth and neighborhood empowerment have been thwarted by state-sanctioned exclusion, violence, and a Drug Warfare 2.0 weaponized with oppressive taxes.”

SACRAMENTO, Calif., June 1, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — In response to the Might 13 launch of Governor Newsom’s 2022 California state finances, Supernova Girls – an Oakland nonprofit that works to create alternatives for Black and Brown folks within the hashish area – will likely be internet hosting a Capitol steps “Down with the Taxes, Uplift the Folks” Rally and Press Convention on Thursday, June 2, 2022 at 2pm.

A strong line-up of BIPOC hashish stakeholders, coverage makers, operators, and sufferers embrace: Amber Senter, chairman and Government Director of Supernova Girls, Nina Parks, activist and CEO of Present of Doja, Chaney Turner, Government Director of Past Fairness, Malaki Amen, Government Director of California City Partnership, Whitney Beatty, CEO of Josephine & Billies (South Los Angeles dispensary), and Maisha Bahati, CEO of Crystal Nugs Inc., Xóchitl Martínez, Chapter Chief of Veterans Stroll and Speak Bay Space, Leonard Watkins of Nameless Caregivers, Reese Benton, Founder and CEO of Posh Inexperienced Collective, Morris Kelly, CEO of SF Roots, and extra. 

Sen. Steven Bradford (District 35), writer of SB1281 and SB1293, has voiced his help for the occasion through video, “With out significant adjustments to California’s hashish tax coverage, the business is destined for failure, particularly fairness hashish operators who’re working on a really skinny margin.”

Organized by Senter, who spearheaded the November 29, 2021 Oakland Metropolis Corridor Rally and Press Convention following the vandalization and robberies of 15 licensed social fairness hashish companies in addition to the January 13, 2022 #NODRUGWARV2 Rally and Press Convention with Origins Council, Thursday’s 2pm “Down with the Taxes, Uplift the Folks” Rally and Press Convention highlights three pressing asks of the Governor and the Funds and Finance Committee forward of their July 1, 2022 finances deadline: repeal the excise tax for social fairness retailers throughout the state, cut back the excise tax to five% for all others, and codify a statewide definition of social fairness for the aim of building eligibility for the state excise tax exemption.

“Governor Newsom promoted Prop. 64 much less as a chance for tax income and extra as a historic alternative for racial and social justice and financial empowerment — to treatment the injury of a drug conflict that had disproportionately criminalized Blacks and Latinos,” defined rally organizer and Government Director of Supernova Girls, Amber Senter.

“And but 5 years later, California’s Black and Brown hashish operators, lots of whom voted for Newsom not as soon as however twice – are actually sitting getting ready to extinction, attributable to onerous state taxes, whereas the Governor sits on a $100B surplus. The place is the racial and social justice in that? With out significant tax reform NOW, California’s few remaining BIPOC hashish operators and social fairness companies is not going to survive, and the communities and sufferers they serve will be unable to entry reasonably priced and secure hashish. It is a main well being disaster in the present day and a missed financial alternative for tomorrow,” added Senter.

Below California State legislation, sociality fairness packages, that are presently ruled by native jurisdictions, can’t contemplate race or ethnicity as eligibility standards (Proposition 209, 1996). The “Down with the Taxes, Uplift the Folks” Rally organizers advocate a brand new statewide definition primarily based on 51% possession of a hashish firm and both 5 years of residency in a low-income neighborhood disportionately impacted by the Warfare on Medicine or having an instantaneous member of the family with a previous hashish arrest or conviction. 

“In 2020, 75% of cannabis-related arrests in Los Angeles had been Blacks and Latinos, in response to LAPD data. With Los Angeles’ majority-minority inhabitants, L.A. alone may assist rewrite our state’s latest historical past of white operators dominating an business that has bodily, emotionally, psychologically, and economically imprisoned so many BIPOC folks… however not with out true tax reform on the State degree that protects our susceptible social fairness operators and BIPOC sufferers,” stated Whitney Beatty, CEO of Josephine & Billies.

The “Down with the Taxes, Uplift the Folks” Rally and Press Convention comes on the heels of Governor Newsom’s latest hashish Tax Proposal, which maintains the 15% excise tax however adjustments the purpose of assortment from distribution to level of sale starting January 1, 2023, with the intention to extend it to 19% in three years.

“My great-grandfather was a sharecropper who purchased his personal freedom,” stated Morris Kelly, CEO of SF Roots dispensary. “That is the dream BIPOC California operators purchased into with Prop 64, however the 26% improve within the excise tax will kill this dream, crushing my capability to show a revenue and compromising our neighborhood’s entry to secure drugs. The excise tax will get externalized onto the end-consumer, which is able to solely additional drive sufferers to the illicit market the place hashish prices 40-60% much less.”

“For 5 years, our makes an attempt at generational wealth and neighborhood empowerment have been thwarted by state-sanctioned exclusion, violence, and a Drug Warfare 2.0 weaponized with oppressive taxes. Eliminating the excise tax for social fairness operators and lowering it to five% for all others would foster prosperity and social mobility for BIPOC operators whereas defending BIPOC affected person entry to regulated and secure plant drugs. We’re almost out of time, however the Governor and Funds and Finance Committee can nonetheless change this. Let’s hope they do the correct factor,” famous Senter.

Be part of Supernova Girls on the steps of the Capitol constructing, West aspect, on June 2, 2022 at 2pm for a Rally and Press Convention. Distant attendees might watch the Rally dwell through Fb or Instagram.

About Supernova Girls

Based by Black and Brown ladies in 2015, Supernova Girls is a 501(c)3 nonprofit group that works to empower Black and Brown folks to turn out to be self-sufficient shareholders within the hashish and pure plant drugs area by way of training, advocacy, and community constructing.

PRESS CONTACTS:
JAZMYN STRODE: 931.319.8411 / [email protected] 
HOLLY AUBRY: 646.943.0541 / [email protected]

SOURCE Supernova Girls