On Feb. 1, the official X account of The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) posted a photo of former President Richard Nixon and a caption meant to celebrate the legacy of the War on Drugs, but the comment section didn’t go as planned. Making things worse, the DEA posted it on the first day of Black History Month, which is especially ironic given that cannabis laws were unfairly enforced mostly on Black and brown Americans.

“On Dec. 14, 1970, at the White House, the International Narcotic Enforcement Officers’ Association presented President Nixon with a ‘certificate of special honor’ in recognition of the outstanding loyalty and contribution to support narcotic law enforcement,” the post reads. The post was marked with a tag for Throwback Thursday, #TBT.

A chorus of rebuttals swiftly followed as people asked essentially the same question: Is the drug war something we should be celebrating? People like Cat Packer—the director of drug markets and legal regulation at the Drug Policy Alliance and former executive director of Los Angeles’ Department of Cannabis Regulation—immediately explained why the post is fundamentally wrong on multiple levels.

“On the first day of Black History Month 2024 the Biden Administration’s DEA is celebrating President Nixon—this is the same agency responsible for marijuana scheduling,” Packer wrote.

Black Americans are arrested for violating cannabis possession laws at nearly four times the rates of white Americans, even though both demographics consume pot at relatively the same rates, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) notes. This racial disparity in cannabis arrests is much worse in certain areas. For instance in New York, a 2021 analysis of cannabis-related arrests in New York City’s five boroughs during 2020 reported that people of color made up 94 percent of people who were arrested. If laws cannot be enforced equally on the people, after decades of attempts, then why enforce them at all?

“It is an incredible affront to do Nixon today. You should remove this post. Nixon did more to harm the black community than any other President in the 20th century. And he did it with the War On Drugs,” Erik Radle, CEO of The Miller Ad Agency wrote in response.

Why is the War on Drugs Considered Racist?

Nixon’s own administration now admits that the War on Drugs—particularly the war on cannabis—was intentionally used as a weapon to target Black Americans and anti-Vietnam War demonstrators.

John Ehrlichman, who worked under Nixon and was a Watergate co-conspirator, blew the whistle in Harper’s Magazine in 2016—fully admitting the racist intentions of the Nixon administration in launching the War on Drugs.

“You want to know what this was really all about?” Ehrlichman asked. “The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”

Nixon unceremoniously resigned from office under Section 1 of the 25th Amendment on August 9, 1974 when his impeachment materialized and became imminent. Throughout the history of America, only Andrew Jackson, Bill Clinton, and Donald Trump (two times) were impeached in the House, however only Nixon was completely removed from office.

Other presidents may have picked up in Nixon’s footsteps. The Atlantic ran an expose in 2019 on recently uncovered audio, captured in October 1971, alleging that then-California Governor Ronald Reagan held a damning conversation with Nixon before ascending to the Oval Office. The audio transcript shows how Reagan singled out and disparaged Black Americans before his presidency. Famously, Reagan was the president who launched the War on Drugs 2.0 along with First Lady Nancy Reagan, the “Just Say No” era when the federal government ramped up attacks on cannabis consumers and drug users.

The recent post on Feb. 1 shows the level of denial in the DEA about the success of the War on Drugs and how out of touch they are with the public. It wasn’t a success: Overdose deaths continue to hit all-time highs, billions of dollars are wasted, and the drug laws aren’t enforced fairly on Black and brown Americans.

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A paper written by the Cannabis Regulators of Color Coalition (CRCC) was published by the Ohio State University Moritz College of Law on Aug. 12. The paper, entitled “Not a SAFE Bet: Equitable Access to Cannabis Banking, An Analysis of the SAFE Banking Act,” analyzes the Safe and Fair Enforcement Banking Act (SAFE), and includes numerous recommendations for improvement.

Authors Cat Packer, Shaleen Title, Rafi Aliya Crockett, and Dasheeda Dawson state that the SAFE Banking Act isn’t enough in its current form. “But unfortunately, SAFE, as written, is unlikely to result in equitable access to financial services,” they wrote in the study abstract. “This paper summarizes the bill, analyzes why it would fall short of its purported goals, and makes recommendations to improve the bill.”

“SAFE would address only the legal and regulatory consequences potentially faced by financial institutions for providing services to the cannabis industry,” the authors wrote in their executive summary. “Without additional legislative amendments to directly address challenges related to fair and equitable access to financial services, small and minority-owned cannabis businesses that currently have inadequate access to banking services or loans are likely to continue to be denied the full breadth and depth of services offered to others.”

The authors compiled 10 recommendations that could help improve future reform of cannabis banking (check out the full explanation for each recommendation here.) In summary, these recommendations cover a thorough collection of topics of improvement, such as redirecting Internal Revenue Service code 280E funds, expanding requirements for anti-discrimination laws, identifying best practices for federal banking regulators, and much more.

The authors concluded that although a cannabis policy gap has developed, now is the time to address these concerns. “The continued criminalization of cannabis at the federal level, coupled with an increasing number of states authorizing medical or adult-use cannabis activity, has resulted in an ever-widening policy gap between federal and state cannabis laws,” the authors said. “However, due to cannabis’s widely accepted medical use, existing state and local efforts to authorize, license and regulate cannabis for medical and adult-use, and bipartisan support from the American public regarding cannabis legalization, many believe that it is no longer a matter of ‘if’ or ‘when’ this gap will be addressed, but ‘how’.”

Ultimately, the CRCC authors don’t recommend the SAFE Banking Act in its current form unless these topics are discussed. “As such, regardless of whether Congress decides to pass cannabis banking reform as a part of more comprehensive cannabis policy reform or as a standalone issue, Congress should ensure that any legislation related to cannabis banking reform includes explicit provisions that seek to ensure fair and equitable access to financial services for all in the cannabis industry. Until the SAFE Banking Act is amended to include such provisions it should not be considered a safe bet to achieve equity in cannabis banking.”

The release of this paper, along with these 10 recommendations, arrives nearly one month after Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, and Sen. Cory Booker filed the Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act in July. Reports predict that compromises could be made, with the possible release of a bill being referred to as “SAFE Banking Plus.”

On Wednesday, Aug. 17, the CRCC is holding a Cannabis Regulatory Deep Dive to discuss this analysis with all four author contributors, as well as Maritza Perez, Director of the Office of Federal Affairs at the Drug Policy Alliance, who will moderate the meeting. The event will be held via Zoom at 12 p.m. ET.

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Cat Packer stepped down from her role as executive director of the Los Angeles Department of Cannabis Regulation (DCR), home to one of the largest, most challenging cannabis markets in the world. It is with gratitude that we thank her for her service as the city’s first “cannabis czar.” 

Packer served nearly five years, as the first person to assume the role of executive director of the DCR. The department is responsible for administering the cannabis licensing and regulatory program established by the Los Angeles City Council. 

DCR processes all applications for thousands of cannabis licenses in the City of Los Angeles, makes licensing decisions or licensing recommendations to the Cannabis Regulation Commission and regulates the operations of licensed cannabis businesses in the city.

Under the title, Packer advised Los Angeles officials on cannabis law, policy and regulation, and oversaw the city’s licensed commercial cannabis market. It was a challenging position for anyone to tackle. Over 1,200 business licenses were granted with Packer at the helm.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti first announced her departure on Twitter. “Under Cat’s leadership, DCR issued over 1,200 licenses, with over 350 granted to Social Equity applicants,” Garcetti wrote in a tweet. “DCR has generated over $320M in tax revenue since 2018. Cat’s tenure at DCR made the department a national model in establishing equitable cannabis policy and implementation.”

Packer wrote a resignation announcement on March 14, outlining some of her accomplishments during her tenure as executive director. “I am confident that the City will continue to deepen its commitment to address cannabis policy reforms and the disproportionate impact of the War on Drugs, and to improve upon existing efforts that make cannabis public policy more responsible and equitable,” Packer wrote. “Furthermore, I trust that DCR will continue to keep equity at the center of its mission, and expand and improve cannabis programs and services.”

Ironing Out Licensing Hurdles

Garcetti appointed Packer to the position in August 2017, after city voters approved the local regulation and taxation of adult-use cannabis earlier that year. 

Packer faced overwhelming odds and pressure during her reign, with challenges that could be expected in America’s second-largest city. Licensing processes were under constant fire. ​​In 2020, for instance, cannabis business license applicants in Los Angeles sued the city, claiming the process for applying for a license is flawed.  

A lawsuit was filed by the Social Equity Owners and Workers Association—demanding that the city vet all applications based on a first-come-first-served basis or come up with a new system that is more equal and transparent.

Virgil Grant, co-founder of the California Minority Alliance, said Packer is the “fall person” who took the blame for various problems from the get-go, according to The EUR/Electronic Urban Report, while others cited other issues.

“It took a considerable amount of time for us to get the resources, whether it be staff or otherwise, to put our licensing program forward,” Packer told High Times last July. Packer’s staff was eventually tripled to meet the growing needs. As of last year, her team grew from a tiny five-person staff to a more reasonable 15-person staff. 

Initially, Packer sought out to become a civil rights attorney focusing on LGBTQ rights. But things changed in 2012 when Colorado and Washington legalized adult-use cannabis. While aware of the issue, she didn’t think critically about the topic for a few more years. 

But then in 2015, her final year in law school, Cat Packer began taking courses on how the law impacted everyday people. Once she was introduced to The New Jim Crow by civil rights lawyer Michelle Alexander, a professor at the university, she said her eyes were opened. She agreed that nothing had contributed more to the systematic mass incarceration of people of color in the United States than the War on Drugs. 

In 2016, while working with Californians for Responsible Marijuana Reform, Packer campaigned for Proposition 64 with the Roll Up the Vote party with The Game and DJ Nitrane. It was around that time that High Times received emails from her and her campaign, urging volunteers to make calls to voters and get to work.

In the meantime, Michelle Garakian, assistant executive director of the Department of Cannabis Regulation, has been appointed interim executive director. Garakian was also a frequent correspondent with cannabis-related media.

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