Recently, the Chicago City Council voted to move forward with the sale of legalized cannabis on Jan. 1, disregarding the need for racial and social equity in the process. To right the course, Gov. J.B. Pritzker must fulfill his offer to provide at least two more medicinal social equity licenses to underrepresented groups in Chicago.

I commend the aldermanic Black Caucus for expecting better from our city and continuing to demand a vote to delay sales until equity can be ensured. Our state vowed to go further than other states and create recreational marijuana laws that put racial equity at the forefront. That vow has gone unfulfilled: The 11 firms currently authorized to sell recreational marijuana in Chicago are owned by white males. The decision to continue with marijuana sales in January is only the most recent example of this continued economic scourge on communities of color. Our criminal legal system has done this for decades.