Cat Packer, LA’s first executive director of the Department of Cannabis, sees progress, but much more is needed

In 2017, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti named Cat Packer as the city’s first executive director for cannabis regulation. In the years that followed, Packer, a passionate advocate of equality and inclusivity, believes the city has made strides in creating a regulatory infrastructure with pathways for fair ownership.

However, the battle for the ideal market continues, as does the need for LA and other major markets to address numerous effects of the drug war, from the illegal market to social justice. As incremental progress takes shape in the city, according to Cat Packer, the struggle for a fair market continues both here and across America.

Cannabis comes into play when Cat Packer was in college

Cannabis wasn’t Packer’s original focus when he was a student, graduate student, or even a law student at Ohio State University. Originally, she wanted to become a civil rights attorney with a focus on LGBT rights. Cannabis first appeared on their radar in 2012 when Colorado and Washington legalized adult use. Although she was aware of the problem, she said that she had not thought about the issue critically for several years.

In 2015, her final year in law school, Packer began taking courses on how the law affects people on a daily basis. Her eyes opened when she was introduced to The New Jim Crow by civil rights attorney Michelle Alexander, a professor at the university. She was particularly impressed by Alexander’s statement that nothing had contributed more to the systematic mass incarceration of black people in the United States than the war on drugs.

“My eyes were just open to the cannabis-related legacy, politics, and history of the ban and how effective that policy has been against black and brown communities in particular,” recalled Packer.

Packer would immediately move from graduation to cannabis reform, partnering with the Drug Policy Alliance and the 2016 Ohio Campaign for Legalization of Adult Use. While still at school, she remembers having had a “heated discussion” with lawmakers about the lack of recognition of the drug war, its effects, or measures to solve the problem. A professor convinced them to join the campaign to better understand the tools used to promote cannabis policy. The bill would eventually fail. Still, Packer has gained a better understanding of the importance of due diligence and the creation of laws that benefit communities.

Go across the country for cannabis reform

After the Ohio campaign, Cat Packer searched the country for the leaders in cannabis reform. Around the same time, she learned how to use cannabis reform to promote social and racial justice. In 2016, she became aware of a one-day DPA strategy meeting before the United Nations would discuss its drug policy. After learning that the event would reconcile racial and drug policies, Packer had to attend. “It felt like a calling,” she recalls.

Soon after, she took a mega-bus from Ohio to New York City in hopes of meeting proponents who matched her goals. She would be the first to arrive at the event. She met Lynne Lyman, the then California DPA director. After sharing her passion for cannabis reform, Lyman told her about the DPA’s legalization efforts in California and Prop 64. From there, Packer’s journey would accelerate.

“I’d say within three or four months of our first meeting in New York, I was in Los Angeles working on the Prop 64 campaign,” said Packer, who served as campaign coordinator.

The Ohio experience prepared her for the political process in the West. Like any other state, California’s efforts would involve significant financial interests to participate in the process. She said the combination could create a level of ease in which the political process and public order separate on core issues ranging from public safety to social justice.

“I think a lot of those lessons and experiences have translated into some of my work,” she noted.

Cat Packer: Creating the city’s cannabis infrastructure

With LA being America’s second largest city and an epicenter for California cannabis, Cat Packer said her team must be deliberate in their work while addressing a number of urgent matters, from licensing to illegal marketing.

She noted that an early effort involved creating a regulatory framework for the medical field, which was first legalized in 1996.

Packer said many outside of LA criticizing the market may overlook the thousands of cannabis operators in town. “We have spent a lot of our capacity as a department in recent years to build an infrastructure to transform our existing market,” said Packer.

She added, “We had to first move our existing operators and go through different cycles of budget requests to get the resources we have today.”

She said that while LA has problems with the illegal market, the city is not alone in such efforts. “There are many different states and local jurisdictions trying to use their power more consciously and we are trying to share best practices and strategies,” said Packer. She added that the work is an ongoing effort.

The workload remains immense, but progress is underway. “It took us a considerable amount of time to raise the resources, staff or otherwise, to move our licensing program forward,” she said. However, Packer’s team has grown in recent years, going from five to 15 people who helped coordinate between local authorities and city council members.

The effort resulted in the department securing tens of millions in resources to continue development of the program, including ongoing justice efforts. Recently the first wave of capital providers started in the city. Despite being a milestone, Packer notes that hundreds of applicants remain in the pipeline. The goal is to efficiently handle the people who are still waiting while using the resources of the department to ensure that applicants are successful after receiving a license.

Additional efforts are underway. On April 20th The city launched its Social Justice Grant Program (SEED), which would provide millions to equity seekers. The program follows the path of other cities including Portland, Oregon.

Both Packer and Portland Civic Life leader Dasheeda Dawson are members of the Cannabis Regulators of Color Coalition (CRCC), a coalition of elected and appointed minority cannabis regulators and lawmakers. Packer is also a member of the DPA’s state cannabis policy working group. Both groups have published stock-based principles for the industry with the hope of conceiving a market that will establish best practices for a proficient cannabis industry.