From the Washington Post:

After a dramatic failure, effort to diversify Maryland’s medical marijuana industry moves closer to passage

By Rachel Chason April 4 at 5:40 PM Email the author

A bill to diversify Maryland’s medical marijuana industry received final approval in the state Senate on Wednesday — after a similar effort to bring in more minority-owned businesses faced a bitter defeat in the final minutes of last year’s session.

About one-third of Maryland residents are African American, but none of the 14 companies that have lucrative licenses to grow medical marijuana are led by black executives. The bill would increase the number of licenses for growers and processors, and it specifies that those licenses will be awarded in a process that gives preference to minority-owned businesses.

Heck, why not give African-Americans a monopoly on legal marijuana retailing, the way American Indians get casinos?

What’s the worst that could happen? Black retailers would be inefficient, open only for short hours, and charge high prices?

Sure, Korean go-getters straight off the plane from Pusan would no doubt do a more pervasive job of helping Americans fulfill our ambition of getting high while we watch daytime television, just as they do a more efficient job of selling black hair care products to blacks in the ghetto than blacks do. But marijuana selling is a bad thing, so the more incompetent the better.

[Comment at Unz.com]