The Social Equity Council has revised a map that outlines geographic areas that are eligible for social equity status in the state’s recreational marijuana law.
The Social Equity Council (SEC) on Tuesday approved a new disproportionately impacted area cultivators map that makes eligible for social equity status locales in which at least 10% of the residents have drug-related convictions between 1982 and 2020.
The change follows criticism that the state’s cannabis regulations had allowed people in affluent municipalities such as Simsbury and New Canaan to qualify for certain social equity status.
The state’s 2021 cannabis law states that disproportionately impacted zones can also include areas that have an unemployment rate greater than 10%, but the SEC chose to recertify the map using only the conviction rate data, which the legislature leaves up to the body’s discretion. The new map does not need final approval from the General Assembly.
Social Equity Council Chair Andrea Comer said she understands there are lingering concerns about the map, which can be found online here, but those should be addressed by the state legislature during the next session. She didn’t clarify what particular changes the council would recommend.
“We will be making recommendations to the General Assembly regarding the metrics used to determine the DIA map that should ameliorate those concerns,” Comer said.
Councilman Edwin Shirley said using conviction rates as the sole determinant factor for those designated zones is an “elegant” way of approaching what the law intended.
“By eliminating the use of employment data as part of it, we got rid of aberrations that occurred in certain census tracts where unemployment is unusually high, but median income is also high and conviction rates are very low,” Shirley said.
A disproportionately impacted area cultivator license allows for a large-scale operation of more than 15,000 square feet of grow space. It’s different from a micro-cultivator license that allows for a grow space between 2,000 square feet and 10,000 square feet.
During the Hartford Business Journal’s cannabis expo in September, Comer said she was surprised to see certain municipalities show up on the initial disproportionately impacted area map for social equity cultivators.
