Alicia Deals is the poster child for Arizona’s social equity program, and she is willing to pass up an immediate payday — risking no payday at all — in order to try to forge her own path in a complex and heavily regulated industry.
Deals is one of 26 winners of marijuana establishment licenses the Arizona Department of Health Services distributed in April through a much-anticipated lottery, and she is intent on becoming a successful cannabis entrepreneur. With her newly acquired license, she hopes to bring the benefits of the cannabis industry to one of the program’s targeted areas.
“This is a divine opportunity and we have major things to do,” Deals told the Arizona Mirror. “I’m here to make changes in the marijuana industry; community-based changes. It’s just not right that so many people have suffered.”
Given she does not have the economic heft of a large, established multi-state operator (MSO) or the backing of a wealthy benefactor, opening a marijuana establishment will be an uphill climb. It is a challenge she is more than willing to accept.
Arizona’s social equity ownership program is intended to right the wrongs caused by marijuana prohibition during the decades-long war on drugs.
It was established by the passage of Proposition 207, which legalized adult-use recreational cannabis in 2020. The goal is to bring the economic benefits of legal cannabis to the communities that have been disproportionately harmed by nearly a century of…
