Hutchinson said that in order to "normalize and legalize a product for whom the prohibition of that exact same product destroyed generations of communities, you have to center those two things together."

Policy proposals centered around equity are "better," Hutchinson stressed.

"If you center the people who are harmed the most by this—the communities that were harmed the most by this—then you can meet people in places where they didn't even know they were going to agree with you," the new MPP director added.