The City of Los Angeles Department of Cannabis Regulation dropped the news on 4/20 that the SEED Grant program is now open for applications. The program is the city’s innovative approach to business development that addresses the injustices of the past “War on Drugs.”
4/20 is the official date when Social Equity Individual Applicants can apply for the grant program. The program has been a long time coming, and provides funding to emerging cannabis entrepreneurs and start-up businesses.
SEED stands for Social Equity Entrepreneur Development, a grant program to provide finanical assistance to applicants who qualify as part of the city’s Social Equity Program.
The Social Equity Program was put in place when it became clear that urban farmers who made weed famous were left out of the lucrative industry when recreational marijuana became legal in the state in 2018.
Recognizing the socio-economic disparity, the city has made a start toward investing in communities that were targeted by the War on Drugs precisely because they were cultivating weed.
According to the Social Equity Program website,
“Cannabis criminalization and its enforcement has had long-term, adverse impacts to the City of Los Angeles, particularly for low income and minority community members.
[…]
The Social Equity Program (SEP) is one tool the City of Los Angeles is using to begin to acknowledge and repair the harm caused by the War on Drugs and the disparate enforcement of cannabis prohibition.”
LA City Social Equity Program Website
The program provides $25,000 grants to Social Equity applicants who are already in line for a dispensary license, and it provides grants of $10,000 to individual Social Equity applicants. The program has been given $6 million dollars for the grants.
The grant program is run through Elevate Impact Los Angeles, and the application is at elevateimpactla.com.
