NPR. When he first started selling weed, Gregory Perero was just a kid. It was the 1970s.

He was living in the South Bronx.

I had lived on the street most of my life. God bless my mother's soul, but she had a drug problem. My

father ended up incarcerated for a period of time. I had uncles who turned into weed dealers and it's kind of where I got my start.

Gregory remembers how the economy for illegal drugs thrived in his neighborhood and

how some police would selectively turn a blind eye. He says white people who came

in to buy drugs the cops would just shoe away but for black and brown folks.

For us who lived in the area if there was one bag on the floor, $10 bag and there's five of us around all five go to jail would intend to sale. I know because it happened to me

And this isn't just Gregory's experience right for decades. States have arrested and

imprisoned people for selling or possessing weed.

And if you look at the stats, it's clear marijuana prohibition has been enforced in a discriminatory

way.

For instance, despite the fact that white people and black people

use marijuana at similar rates, black people are more than three times as likely to

be arrested for it. Nowadays, cannabis is a fast-growing industry, estimated to bring in roughly

$30 billion this year. And as many states try to stand up these new markets,

they're trying to give those most affected by marijuana's prohibition, people like Gregory,

a chance to make money from it legally through something called social equity programs.

It all sounds really great on paper, but there's challenges, so many challenges.

This is the indicator from Planet Money, I'm Waylon Wong.

And I'm Adrian Ma. Today on the show how the economics of the

cannabis business can make social equity hard to achieve and why a lot of

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