In West Virginia, a new law includes a provision that requires regulators to encourage minority-owned business owners to apply for growing licenses. (Photo by Heath Korvola/ Digital Vision/Getty Images)

In some states that have legalized marijuana, officials are trying to entice nonwhite citizens to join the cannabis industry with breaks aimed at making up for the toll unequal drug enforcement has taken on Black and brown communities.

So far, the booming industry has overwhelmingly line the pockets of white cannabis sellers.

Andre Shavers was sentenced to five years on felony probation after authorities burst into the house where he was living in one of Oakland's most heavily policed neighborhoods and found a quarter ounce of marijuana.

After the 2007 raid, Shavers couldn't leave the state without permission. He was subject to police searches at any time. He walked to the corner store one night for maple syrup and came back in a police car. Officers wanted to search his home again.

All the while, cannabis storefronts flourished elsewhere in a state where medical marijuana was authorized in 1996.

The Legislature, Gov. Charlie Baker and Treasurer Deborah Goldberg continue to play a game of cat-and-mouse when it comes to marijuana regulation.

On Nov. 8, 2016, Massachusetts voters approved a ballot law legalizing possession and use of marijuana, and authorizing a retail pot industry. But 183 days later, the question of who will be in charge over overseeing the marijuana industry remains up in the air.

In December, the Legislature and Baker delayed implementation of that law by six months, passing a statute that left Goldberg in charge of regulation while pushing back from March 1 to Sept. 1 the deadline for her appointments to the Cannabis Control Commission created under the ballot law.

The committee working on alterations to the marijuana law could choose to separate its recommendations into two separate bills, addressing some issues in legislation expected by the end of June and delaying decisions on less time-sensitive topics until later in the session, Senate President Stanley Rosenberg said Wednesday.

“I know that the two chairs and the members of the committee have been discussing what’s the short list that we need to deal with in the short-run and what is the longer list of things that we could do over time,” Rosenberg said. “Because we’ve got to get the agencies up and running and certain things can wait and certain things can’t.”

“We cannot overprice and overtax the legalization of marijuana, we can’t, we don’t want the black market to continue to dictate the flow of this substance,” said Hampden County Sheriff Nicholas Cocchi at the final State House hearing before lawmakers deliver their rewrite of the marijuana legalization law.

But Monday’s testimony underscored the fact that it’s a delicate balancing act between overtaxing and undertaxing.

Cocchi and other sheriffs told the legislators they want five percent of the pot revenue earmarked for a marijuana addiction treatment fund, and noted that a large percentage of their inmates are drug addicts in need of treatment.

While Congress has largely refused to roll back, or even debate, the federal prohibition on pot, local voters across the U.S. have cast ballots to end the war on marijuana. But the nation's patchwork of pot laws can be confusing – even in the states where it's allowed – so here's a blueprint of what you can and can't do in the eight states (plus D.C.) where weed's been legalized for recreational use.

City councilors Gladys Lebron-Martinez and Rebecca Lisi will hold a Ward 1 neighborhood meeting on April 20 at 6 p.m. at Kelly School on a proposal to put a medical marijuana facility at 28 Appleton St.

Representatives of GTI Massachusetts NP Corp., which wants to open the medical marijuana cultivation and processing facility, will be available at the meeting at 216 West St. to answer questions, said Lebron-Martinez, the Ward 1 representative on the City Council.

Amy Turncliff, a mother of three, is concerned.

Her children are 10, 8 and 4 years old. In November, voters approved legislation that made recreational marijuana legal in Massachusetts. However, there is still a lot of legislation coming down the pipeline.

Turncliff, a neuroscientist who lives in Ashland, thinks a lot is at stake. She and her husband are worried their children will grow up in a culture where “marijuana use is treated like alcohol use and is believed to be a rite of passage.”

“I’m not even sure 21 is the right cut-off age,” she said, referring to the current legal age for owning, using, and home-growing marijuana. She thinks it should be higher.

Municipal officials worry that allowing medical dispensaries to set up shop will eventually end up sticking towns with unwanted recreational dispensaries.

The regulatory woes are hitting Massachusetts. Lawmakers in the Bay State have been trying to amend the voter approved recreational cannabis legalization law since it passed in November, and the lack of clarity is now taking a toll on the state’s existing medical marijuana community.

While the tension between state and federal laws has created a difficult situation for cannabis users, there’s another factor that is complicating the changing attitude towards weed: hospitals. Though it isn’t legally mandated, many hospitals won’t allow people who use weed to be placed on organ transplant waiting lists.