right now at this defining moment in america, with so much on the line, from abc news, "my america, your america, our america." this is "turning point." tonight, legalizing marijuana. who stands to lose? who stands to gain? from big businesses -- >> we doubled our b going tooue >> me and the rich white guy, we're doing the same thing. we're selling or providing marijuana to the public, right? but i get a penitentiary, and he can get a pension. >> where black and brown americans are more likely to face the justice system. >> i never thought i would get sentenced to ten years for marijuana. >> now what's owed? this "turning point" special,

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singh. >> this is like where it all started for you, right? >> definitely. brings back a lot of memories. >> reporter: back in the early 2000s, harry kelser had left his hometown of roanoke for the big city of richmond and the promise of virginia union university. what did you think the next four years was going to bring you? >> man, hopefully i was going to go to school and get my degree and get out and find a technology job and have a family. like, i guess that's the way it goes, right? i just had dreams of just having like a normal life. >> reporter: but what happened next would forever change the course of his life. >> when did you feel those dreams were out the window? >> when i got to my apartment, the police were sitting outside my house like it taped off like it was a murder scene. for marijuana. >> reporter: harry, like many college students, smoked weed. he'd started selling it on the

side to make extra cash. >> it was so open. it was like everybody was smoking. it never felt illegal or criminal. but in a sense, i did know it was breaking the law. >> reporter: being busted was scary enough. but when he learned the severity of listen teps, it was devastating. >> i never thought that i would ever get sentenced to ten years for marijuana. >> reporter: harry, at just 25 years old, would serve nearly a decade in a virginia prison for a first-time felony. but this year, his home state legalized cannabis, and with it an entirely new industry. leaving people like harry wondering what they stand to gain after they've lost so much. >> i want in. literally. like i $100,000 and got 10 years. you can legally sell hundreds of millions? yes, that is kind of tough to swallow. >> reporter: virginia becoming the first southern state to join at least 16 others in fully

legalizing cannabis. it reflects a cultural shift in our nation, with 91% of americans saying marijuana should be legal for medicinal or recreational use. >> we are at a tipping point. >> reporter: still, not everyone is ready. >> marijuana is a gateway drug. >> this is a dangerous thing. >> we don't need recreational marijuana. >> reporter: congressional democrats are forging ahead, now working on legislation that can make marijuana legal at the federal level. >> the time has come to end the federal prohibition on marijuana in this country. >> reporter: as the united states prepares for a hazier future, we meet the big players who are hoping to take advantage of the country's green rush. poised to be a $100 billion industry. >> it's moving very quickly. >> reporter: and those who feel like they're going to be left in the dust. >> all these walmarts of weed, i call them carpet baggers. >> reporter: the difficult debate about what's owed to the

black and brown americans disproportionately incarcerated by the war on drugs. >> will they be able to compete nanewly regulated legal industry that's being created? >> reporter: as legalization sweeps the country, the east coast has become the new ground zero. we headed to new jersey where they passed a ballot measure last november to legalize cannabis for adult use. here in the garden state, ed fortune aka nj weedman has been selling marijuana without a license across the street from trenton city hall for years. that's trenton city hall, and that's where ed sells his weed. ed's situation is unique. he operates illegally out of his restaurant without a license in downtown trenton. unabashed and unapologetic. everyone seems to know him, and nobody seems to mind.

>> i'm kind of like the robin hood of reefer around here. >> reporter: his rapport with the community and outright brazenness have earned him quite a following with lines at his joint around the block. how have you noticed your customers change over time? >> the cheech and chong guy doesn't really exist. that's how i look at it. >> reporter: ed's been arrested multiple times. >> in the middle of a search. i'm getting ready to get arrested. >> reporter: including the night before our interview. less than two weeks before cannabis was formally signed into law. but he says those run-ins with the law only fuel his fight. >> trying to change the law that busted me. >> reporter: the law in the state is finally changing, but not in the way that ed had hoped. >> it wasn't the legalization that we all envisioned. no. what it actually legalized was regulated cannabis. what? where to you get regulated

cannabis? only from the corporations that the state was going to legalize, to license. so you couldn't buy weed legal from a guy like me. >> reporter: getting a license to legally sell cannabis can be difficult and expensive. in some states, those with a criminal record are barred. >> people who oftentimes have been arrested do not have access to the $5 million it takes up front to start a dispensary. >> me and a rich white guy, we're doing the same thing, we're selling or providing marijuana to the public, right? but i get a penitentiary, and he can get a pension. >> the quality and safety standards of legal marijuana is significantly different than the illicit market biggest players in new jersey's pre-existing medical market. we suited and up went inside their largest grow facility in the state. >> it's facilities like this one that are preparing to expand as more and more starts start to

legalize adult use cannabis. cureleaf's footprint is growing. in the decade it's been in business it's expanded to 23 states and over 100 dispensaries. >> i think you need companies like curaleaf to enable a system that other people can play in. we're partnering with delivery partners, dispensary partners, small businesses, cafes. >> reporter: they say social equity is baked into their business plan. do you guys currently have any employees with criminal histories related to marijuana-related offenses? >> we do. we've start a people who are precluded from actually participating in the marketplace, right? so we're trying to bring social equity so the forefront of consciousness and create opportunities for these people. >> reporter: but 8 in 10 cannabis companies are owned by white people. you're a white male executive in an industry with a serious

microscope on it right now. do you feel some sort of responsibility or pressure to get it right? >> we feel responsibility in the industry as a leader in the industry. we have a goal this year to hire 10% of the people from people who have actually been harmed by the war on drugs, who have criminal records. >> reporter: by 2025, curaleaf aims to do business with 420 brands and partners from the industry and vows to contribute at least $1 million to groupsos one the people kan kanesha tribble. >> look around you. all that is required to actually build this industry. i think in my best scenarios, that i wake up and that there are underrepresented groups killing it in every facet, from

policy to legal to accounting to fashion to all of it. >> those other jobs you mention, it's a hell of a lot different than ownership, which i think licensing is, right? sure, there are other venues to get people involved. but at the end of the day, isn't that reparative equity ownership? >> it's not just ownership. we have people who are in rehab, we have people who are locked up, people who have lost family members and homes and all kinds of things because of drugs, weed. they might not want anything to do with weed. and they have every right not to. but that doesn't mean they're not owed something. so i want to partner with organizations that are actually in the trenches providing the pushback on those collateral consequences. because those are the most devastating. when we come back -- >> it can happen to you. >> the consequences of the war on drugs. >> what did you miss? >> everything. >> how harry is finding his way

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♪ all i want is roost friiiiies ♪ my new roost fries, crispy chicken, melted cheese, mystery sauce. what's not to love? this could be my biggest hit yet! my new $3.50 roost fries. only at jack in the box. "turning point," "cannabis and justice for all" continues. here again, ashan singh. >> i, barack hussein obama solemnly swear -- >> january 20th, 2009, a momentous day for our country. >> historic inauguration, the nation's first of an african-american president. >> in a virginia courtroom, on that same day, harry kelso faced a very different kind of fate. >> it was crazy. we got our first black president. and i got ten years on weed, a

first charge. >> reporter: the 25-year-old was sentenced to prison for conspiracy to distribute marijuana and three counts of encouraging a minor to assist in distribution. >> it was like 17 and 10 months, and they in turn sold it to a confidential informant. >> african-americans, despite having virtually indistinguishable rates of usage between black americans and white americans, are nearly four times as likely to be arrested for cannabis use as their white peers. >> reporter: marijuana wasn't always policed this way. for hundreds of years, cannabis wasn't regulated at all. >> it's not really until the late 1930s when cannabis bans begin to be put in place. >> it was associated with mexican immigrants and then african-american entertainers and sharecroppers in the american south. >> treasury department intends

to pursue a relentless warfare. >> we see the head of the federal bureau of narcotics, harry ence linger, have a concerted vendetta against black musicians, going so far as to deputize people for harry armstrong. from its inception, marijuana prohibition was rooted in racism, steeped in xenophobia, and served no real public health or safety benefit. >> reporter: the passing of the controlled substance act in 1970 classified cannabis as a schedule 1 drug, putting it on the same level as heroin. >> this nation faces a major crisis in terms of the increasing use of drugs. >> that created an incentive for law enforcement to really target communities of color. we've had millions of people arrested for cannabis possession or sale. >> ten years of your life in the

middle of your 20s. >> you miss a lot, man. you miss christmases, birthdays, people die. >> and what did you miss? >> everything. everything. just the whole -- man. that's tough. hold up. >> reporter: the pain of lost time never truly goes away. >> man. >> what kept you going? >> oh, my mom. my mom came and saw me at least once a month, the whole time. >> going to see him -- was -- i

had to prepare myself. you got 45 minutes. to see him. and they come around, and they tell you, "your time is up, your time is up." it was real hard. i looked forward to that day when i could pick him up. >> reporter: after serving nearly nine years, harry kelso became a free man at 34. given that you had a record, did you compromise your dreams? >> i probably put my dreams on hold. because it's like, in my 30s, everybody's already set in their life in their 30s. it's like, essentially, i'm starting my life new. >> reporter: harry, who had once worked towards a career in tech, knew that might be out of reach because of his record. so he learned to cut hair while in prison. >> i went straight to a barbershop. i tried to do everything so m

felony wouldn't play a role. >> reporter: while he is technically free, there are limits. >> the collateral consequences of a cannabis-related arrest runs the gamut from not being allowed access to employment, not being allowed access to public assistant, not being able to get a loan. these collateral consequences are often as devastating as incarceration itself. >> i would like to own my -- like have a farm, a dispensary. >> reporter: it's unclear if harry will even be eligible to get a license in virginia. it also remains to be seen if his criminal record will be expunged. what do you say to those who say that records should not be expun expunged, that at the time those people committed a crime, they have to live with the consequences of their actions? >> those individuals have already paid a price.

and the question isn't should they be punished? they already have been punished. it is about the future. and the future in a state that has legalized cannabis is that no one is going to be subject to criminal prosecution. >> reporter: from expungement to resentencing to licensing and reinvestment in minority communities, so far it's a bit of a patchwork when it comes to how each state that's legalized is handling retroactive relief. but for those affected, relief measures can't restore the most precious of what was lost. when you hear the words "restorative justice," what do you think? can you restore justice? >> you can restore your rights to vote. okay? but you can't restore justice. no. that's ten years of his life that was taken away. so how can you restore?

give him money for it? give him his -- how are you going to give him his ten years? time with his family. how do you do that? you know? you can't. >> reporter: harry is now focused on the future. >> something's got to change with the laws. it's cruel and unusual punishment. >> reporter: he's also working for change, even speaking on capitol hill with congresswoman tulsi gabbard, calling for marijuana to be legalized on a federal level with restorative justice a part of it. what do you want people to take away from your story? >> i hope that it would make people more open to cannabis. allow lawmakers to see how

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♪ that's "nightline" for

tonight. you can watch all our full episodes on hulu. we'll see you right back here at the same time monday. thanks for staying up with us. have a great weekend. good night, america. i'm kalvin, and there's more to me than hiv. i'm a peer educator,... a fitness buff,... and a champion for my own health. i talked with my doctor... and switched to... fewer medicines with... dovato.