For Black History Month, cannabis history deserves a clear-eyed look. For generations, cannabis laws and the way they were enforced fell especially hard on Black Americans, from the jazz era to drug-war arrest records. Today's legal market, Michigan's included, grew out of that history. Here's the documented story, plus practical ways to support Black-owned cannabis businesses all year.
Why Black History Month, cannabis history and equity belong together
Black History Month started small. Historian Carter G. Woodson announced Negro History Week in February 1926, and the observance grew into a full month that was nationally recognized in 1976, according to the National Archives. The idea was simple: Black Americans' history should be studied, not skipped.
Cannabis belongs in that conversation because the plant's legal story is tangled up with race. Many of the musicians who shaped early cannabis culture were Black. Prohibition-era propaganda singled out jazz musicians. And Black Americans have been arrested under marijuana laws at far higher rates than white Americans. Who gets to build a business in today's legal market is part of the same story.
As a Michigan dispensary, we think that history is worth telling straight. This article follows the long arc. For profiles of the advocates, entrepreneurs, physicians and scientists shaping the field now, see our guide to Black cannabis pioneers.
| Year | What happened |
|---|---|
| 1926 | Carter G. Woodson's first Negro History Week |
| 1937 | Congress passes the Marihuana Tax Act after Harry Anslinger's campaign |
| 1970 | The Controlled Substances Act places marijuana in Schedule I |
| 1976 | Black History Month gains national recognition |
| 2018 | Black Americans are 3.64 times as likely as white Americans to be arrested for marijuana possession |
| 2018 | Michigan voters legalize adult-use cannabis |
| 2026 | A national study reviews equity programs in 17 adult-use states |
Cannabis, jazz and Black culture in the early 1900s
Jazz grew out of Black communities in New Orleans and traveled north to Chicago, New York and beyond. By the 1920s and 1930s, cannabis moved through that world too. In jazz slang, a "viper" was someone who smoked it, and the music said so openly.
Cab Calloway sang "Reefer Man." Ella Fitzgerald sang "When I Get Low, I Get High," a 1936 number, with Chick Webb's orchestra. Violinist Stuff Smith wrote "If You're a Viper," a tune Fats Waller later recorded. These songs were playful and public, played in clubs and on records across the country.
Louis Armstrong is a well-known example. The Louis Armstrong House Museum notes that he called the plant "gage" and first tried it in Chicago. In the early 1930s he was arrested in California for smoking marijuana. The museum suggests his fame may have helped keep his time in jail to a little over a week.
That visibility mattered. Cannabis was part of a celebrated, very public Black art form, and it became easy for officials to link the two. When the federal government turned against the plant, jazz and the people who made it were right in the frame.
How prohibition-era propaganda targeted Black musicians and communities
Harry Anslinger led the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and became a powerful voice against marijuana. U.S. Customs and Border Protection's own history notes that his campaign led to the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937. The act regulated importing, growing, possessing and selling marijuana, and a violation could bring a fine of up to $2,000, up to five years in prison, or both.
Newspapers and magazines carried the message. A 2020 review in the Journal of Cannabis Research points out that the New York Times ran only eight articles mentioning marijuana between 1851 and 1930, then 133 from 1931 to 1940. Of 17 magazine articles on marijuana published from mid-1937 to mid-1939, 10 came from Anslinger's bureau itself.
Those stories linked the plant to crime, violence, sex and immorality. The same review describes how American drug scares have cast certain groups as a "dangerous class" to justify prohibition. For cannabis, those groups included Mexican immigrants and jazz musicians, and the fears behind the campaigns were rooted in racism and xenophobia.
One caution: when you see a dramatic Anslinger quote online, look for where it was first published. The documented record, his bureau's press campaign and the 1937 law, tells the story clearly enough. Our history of anti-cannabis propaganda covers the films and headlines of the era in more depth.
The War on Drugs and unequal arrests and sentencing
In 1970, the Controlled Substances Act placed marijuana in Schedule I, the strictest federal category. A year later, President Nixon called drug abuse "public enemy number one." Our War on Drugs history walks through the decades that followed.
The arrest numbers show who paid the price. The ACLU's 2020 report covered arrests from 2010 to 2018. In 2018, it found, a Black person was 3.64 times more likely than a white person to be arrested for marijuana possession, up from 3.31 times in 2010. That gap held even though Black and white Americans use marijuana at similar rates. In 2018 alone, the ACLU counted almost 700,000 marijuana arrests, more than 43% of all drug arrests that year.
The pattern wasn't new. An earlier ACLU report counted more than 8 million marijuana arrests nationwide from 2001 to 2010. It found Black Americans 3.73 times as likely as white Americans to be arrested for possession.
Sentencing laws raised the stakes. Mandatory minimum sentences became a core part of federal drug law in the 1980s. They tie prison time to the type and amount of a drug, which leaves judges less room to weigh the person in front of them.
A record also lasts. A marijuana conviction can surface in background checks for jobs and apartments long after a case closes. Families feel it too, through lost income and time apart. That lasting damage is why clearing old records is now a central part of the equity conversation.
Legalization and the push for equity: a short bridge
States began legalizing cannabis for adults in the 2010s. Michigan voters joined them in 2018, and the state's adult-use law took effect on December 6 of that year. As legal stores opened, many advocates argued that the new market should include the communities that had borne the brunt of enforcement. That idea is usually called social equity.
Why do equity programs exist at all? Opening a licensed cannabis business is expensive and complicated. Real estate, security systems, testing, compliance staff and license fees add up long before the first sale. People with less access to money, or with an old marijuana record, faced the steepest climb, even though their communities had carried the heaviest enforcement.
A 2026 study by George Washington University researchers reviewed the 17 adult-use states that had equity programs for cannabis entrepreneurs as of May 2025, Michigan among them. Every program required equity applicants to hold majority ownership of the business. Most also offered training, financial help or reduced fees.
Results so far are uneven. In states that reported the data, minority-held licenses ranged from 11.3% of all licenses in Vermont to 60.3% in New Jersey. The authors suggested these programs may need more time to mature before their full effect shows. Our explainer on cannabis social equity covers how equity programs work, including Michigan's.
Michigan today: where to learn about social equity licensing and clearing records
Michigan's Cannabis Regulatory Agency licenses the state's adult-use and medical cannabis businesses. If you're curious about equity licensing, start with the social equity explainer linked above, then check the agency's current program terms before you plan around them. Programs and fees change, so go straight to the regulator for the latest.
Clearing old records is the other half of the work. Legal sales going forward don't erase convictions from before, so some people still carry old marijuana cases. Our guide to Michigan marijuana expungement explains who may qualify, how the process works and where to find free help.
For the wider legal picture, from purchase limits to where you can consume, see our Michigan cannabis laws guide. A few practical steps:
- If you have an old conviction, read the expungement guide first, then talk with a legal aid office or a lawyer about your own case.
- If you're thinking about a cannabis business, look at the state's current equity terms and talk with an advisor before you commit money.
- If you want to help someone else, share accurate information. A record that could be cleared does no good sitting untouched.
Ways to support Black-owned cannabis businesses and advocacy groups all year
Black History Month is a good start, not a finish line. To keep the support going in every season:
- Ask who makes it. Every Michigan cannabis label names the producer and its state license number. Our budtenders are happy to help you look into a brand.
- Look past the logo. A brand's own website usually says who founded it. Founders and current ownership aren't always the same, so it's fair to ask.
- Back record-clearing. Legal aid groups and clinics that help people clear old convictions often rely on volunteers and donations.
- Choose established groups. Before you give to an advocacy organization, check that it's active and that its work matches what it says.
- Buy legal. Licensed stores are part of the regulated, tax-paying market that equity programs were built around.
Adults 21 and older can shop at High Society's eight Michigan stores, and registered medical patients 18 and older can too. Thank you for taking this history seriously. Please consume responsibly.
