There currently exist many organizations aimed at helping Chicagoans navigate the city’s medical marijuana program, but most are sponsored by cannabis companies in Illinois and very few groups service the South and West Sides of the city. Black and brown folks stand to benefit just as much from access to cannabis as anyone else, but they are readily skipped over by many advocacy organizations.

In theory, legal possession and use of pot in Illinois could bring balance to the way it's policing disproportionately affects black and brown folks. But those communities stand to suffer the same systemic barriers in a recreational system that they already face within the medical one. With the city possibly on the brink of ending its prohibition on cannabis, Chicagoans on the South and West Sides are working to ensure that black and brown communities aren’t left out.