The Salt & Pepper Diner in the heart of Lincoln Avenue’s commercial corridor once sat hungry bellies on cushioned swivel chairs, but it will soon open its doors to a new clientele. Akele Parnell, CEO of Umi Farms, and his team are preparing to go before the Zoning Board of Appeals to request a re-zone from class B to class C, which would allow for a commercial cannabis dispensary in the old diner. 

Parnell says,“The purpose of the zoning is to give the community and the city an opportunity to chime in on how they feel about the proposed project.”

Direct community collaboration is a key part of Parnell’s personal and business goal of social equity. With a background in grassroots cannabis advocacy and as an attorney, Parnell is prepared to challenge the system for the betterment of communities like his own — communities harmed by the War on Drugs. 

Within the context of the law, Parnell says, “social equity… shapes markets, new cannabis legalizing efforts in a way where it ensure that folks like myself, folks that come from communities I come from, are able to participate in the industry and have ownership and build wealth.”   

Parnell has spent much of his professional life trying to convince United States congresspersons that the War on Drugs elicits a direct race-based response, such as social equity programs. The precedent set in past cases concerning affirmative action, for example, set a firm boundary for the courts to follow. He says, “You can’t consider race even if you’re trying to repair …a race-based harm.”

He discussed the Supreme Court’s historical tendency to flatten complex, multi-dimensional issues and identities such as in recent affirmative action cases where the three-to-one conservative-dominated court refused to support affirmative action college admissions efforts. 

Parnell’s similar experience obtaining a dispensary license illuminates the urgent need to change the face of the white-monopolized industry.

Nancy Davis, an associate professor of African American history at DePaul, is currently involved in the Cannabis Studies minor, offering the course CAN 300: “Cannabis, Race, and Justice” in the Fall Quarter. She says, “Even with state-wide legislation, you have industry domination, and that … is not helping social justice at all.”

In 2019, Illinois became the eleventh state to fully legalize the use of cannabis, but the first to do so with the addition of a social equity program. Davis explains that federal legalization does not change the fact that the market is monopolized by white-owned companies from cultivation to retail. 

Now, people from Black and Latine communities, those most harmed by the War on Drugs, are essentially locked out from the cannabis market and rely on the stigmatized informal economy where business is not regulated by the state. 

Davis asks, “Is the corporate cannabis structure in Illinois going to bring in the law again to minimize the legacy weed [dealer]—the illegal black market in weed?”

With state legalization and full-scale corporatization of cannabis, the livelihood of the legacy weed dealer, operating within the informal economy, is at stake. Davis acknowledges the concern around increased policing and surveillance of Black and Brown bodies since the War on Drugs was declared in 1971. 

Since this time, communities that popularized the plant are not only increasingly criminalized but also actively excluded from participation in the white-monopolized industry relegating them to an informal economy that is deemed “illegal.” Corporations dominating the scene are incentivized to support efforts against legacy weed dealers, as it minimizes competition, according to my conversation with Davis. 

“They have really destroyed the cannabis plant with all this profit motive,” said Davis. 

The corporatization and subsequent criminalization of Black and Brown communities has extensive and long-lasting effects. Until recently, Davis had no idea that the dispossession of her aunt’s house in the 1980s was directly related to legislature from the War on Drugs. 

“The forfeiture laws were written where if there were someone in your house that was suspected of earning money via drugs, then the local government had the right to forfeit your property,” said Davis. 

Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP) is a nationwide collective involved in youth education and empowerment against policies that continue to punish communities harmed by the War on Drugs. Jeanne Porges, former SSDP president and secretary, was involved in drug education while a student at DePaul. Porges continues to find herself in leadership roles for the SSDP chapter at Adler University. 

Established in 2022, the newest addition to the program is the Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) pipeline. The program is focused on empowering Black and Brown students from HBCU colleges interested in drug policy, education and advocacy as well as destigmatizing the use of cannabis.  

Porges is more heavily involved in policy work in Chicago, primarily with the Chicago Resolution to Advance Sensible Drug Policy which, Porge says, “will decriminalize all drugs in Chicago,” and the Illinois CURE Act to legalize the use of psilocybin therapy in clinics.

Right now, cannabis is considered a Schedule 1 drug, meaning it has no medical uses and is at risk of abuse — a characterization Porges finds inaccurate. 

“The whole scheduling system was created based on the War on Drugs when Nixon decided that he wanted to crack down on cannabis and psychedelics … we think the entire system is corrupt and needs to be changed,” says Porges.  

Additionally, Porges and her colleagues believe that rehabilitation should be funded and accessible for folks leaving the prison system. 

Porges believes decarceration should follow decriminalization, meaning legalization should justify the pardoning of people in prison on cannabis offenses. 

“We don’t believe that anyone should be criminalized for consuming, possessing or selling drugs…there’s like a lot of reasons why people choose to do that. I think it’s all about having compassion and, like, having access to resources.”    

According to Porges, upon exiting the prison system, or rather in place of the prison system, there should be accessible opportunities for expungement, rehabilitation and harm reduction programs such as safer-use centers. 

Part of advocacy for sensible drug policy and safer use is community education. The dispensary’s proximity to DePaul’s campus may “open up conversations about…what the policies are on DePaul’s campus,” says Porges. Federal law under the Drug Free Schools and Campuses and Communities Act prohibits the possession and use of cannabis on campus. 

Parnell, Davis and Porges believe that education by and for the community can also destigmatize the use of cannabis and other drugs, a cultural perception that is heavily shaped by the War on Drugs. A focus on public policy and community efforts towards advocacy and education removes blame from the individual and reorients critique and action towards systems of oppression. “A lot of [concerns] aren’t as real as some folks may feel they are viscerally believing it’s new and scary,” Parnell says. 

Normalization of cannabis consumption would also remove the need for common dispensary security measures such as armed guards, who, according to Parnell, are only there to prohibit robberies. 

Parnell notes the dispensary brand’s connection to sustainability and respect for the Earth. “I know we’re close to Jonquil Park and we care about our parks and green spaces in the city and wanna preserve those as much as possible…for mental health and actual public health…ultimately, we wanna support more parks particularly in disproportionately impacted areas… Some of the best parks are on the South Side and West Side”.

Parnell is hopeful about opening the doors of Umi Farms dispensary by the end of the year but admits the process has been slow with waiting for a license, zoning approval and construction. Being a social equity business also means that the company must raise their own funds to maintain the rent on the prime location that is the old Salt & Pepper Diner. When it finally opens it will be, according to Parnell, “one of the first social equity Black-owned companies to actually operate in the city.”  

Header Illustration by Samarah Nasir