Maritza Perez Medina
Age: 34
Title: Director of Federal Affairs
Company: Drug Policy Alliance
Maritza Perez Medina says her transition from a civil rights attorney to the director of federal affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance just “made sense.”
From her undergraduate work at the University of Nevada, Reno, where she double majored in journalism and Spanish and double minored in political science and economic policy — all while participating in the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute Internship Program and working in the office of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid — to her law degree from the University of California, Berkeley, where she received the highest distinction for her pro bono work and worked at the ACLU of Northern California and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Medina has been focused on social justice.
“I have always been driven to contribute to systemic change that will help advance the rights of people of color and other marginalized groups in our society,” she says.
Today, she leads the Drug Policy Alliance’s federal legislative agenda and strategy to end the drug war, including helping guide the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act to decriminalize and deschedule cannabis though it has yet to be approved by the Senate.
Medina says the Drug Policy Alliance will continue to work with Congress and the Biden administration to pass meaningful reforms, such as the Safe Banking Act, to ensure everyone can participate in the industry.
“There need to be meaningful opportunities for individuals with past arrest and conviction records to participate in the licit economy,” Medina says.
Q&A
What drew you to drug policy reform as a career choice?
I started my career as a civil rights lawyer focused on legislative and policy advocacy for criminal justice reform. The transition to drug policy made sense to me given that drug criminalization is a driver of mass incarceration and contact with the criminal legal system. As a Latina who grew up in a low-income and immigrant household, I have always been driven to contribute to systemic change that will help advance the rights of people of color and other marginalized groups in our society.
Why was the MORE Act successful where so many other descheduling attempts were not?
The MORE Act successfully passed the House twice for a number of reasons. One significant contributor was timing. Each time we pushed for this bill to move, Democrats were in charge, which made it easier to hold hearings on the issue and add cosponsors to the legislation. Democrats have largely been friendlier to marijuana issues than Republicans in Congress have. It also helped that for years, Democrats in Congress had introduced marijuana reform bills including bills that centered impacted communities. This helped lay the groundwork for our comprehensive bill, the MORE Act.
Another helpful factor is that we built a diverse, national coalition consisting of traditional drug policy groups, but also groups that focused on labor, immigration, criminal justice reform, and civil rights, just to name a few other interests that are represented in our coalition. This helped show Congress how broadly the harms of prohibition have impacted our communities and helped cement the fact that the solution must be comprehensive.
What do social equity programs need to incorporate to truly have an impact for POC?
Social equity programs must be open to people with past arrest and conviction records. The sad truth is that Black, Latinx, and Indigenous people have borne the brunt of marijuana criminalization in this country, yet have been generally locked out of the marijuana industry. There need to be meaningful opportunities for individuals with past arrest and conviction records to participate in the licit economy.
Further, there needs to be ample capital available to equity license holders, small business owners, and minority-owned businesses in the industry. This can help them gain real footing in the industry that can lead to long-term success.
What is the next milestone for the Drug Policy Alliance and how will it benefit the industry?
The Drug Policy Alliance is focused on passing a comprehensive marijuana bill in both chambers of Congress that will finally remove marijuana from the CSA, resentence and expunge past convictions, build a fair regulatory framework for marijuana legalization, reinvest in communities most harmed by prohibition, and end the collateral consequences of marijuana activity. Passing descheduling legislation is a long-term goal that will take patience and commitment so we will continue to push for this until it’s our reality.
At the same time, we are supporting efforts to enact marijuana reform now. For instance, we are engaging with the Biden Administration on actions they can take now to minimize the harms of prohibition. In Congress, we are pushing for meaningful reforms to the SAFE Banking Act to ensure that equity license holders, small business owners, and minority-owned businesses also benefit from a bill designed to create “safe harbor” to enable financial institutions to offer banking services to licensed marijuana businesses and ancillary businesses.
We have a lot up our sleeve and I’m excited about our future work in this space!