Philly’s mayoral candidates have been largely mum on marijuana. They’re missing out.

With the Philadelphia mayoral race in the home stretch, candidates are fighting tooth and nail to win over Philadelphians ahead of a critical May primary that will likely determine the city’s next mayor.

But there’s one constituency we don’t hear enough about, which could have a decisive influence on the race: the cannabis community.

It’s no surprise that cannabis legalization is a popular issue that the majority of Pennsylvanians support. In Philadelphia, voters overwhelmingly want to legalize marijuana — this means there is a potential huge base of people who would likely warm up to candidates who publicly support that agenda.

With Gov. Josh Shapiro centering cannabis with a proposed tax on the legal use of marijuana to bring in additional revenue, Pennsylvania Democrats controlling the House, and our neighbors New Jersey and New York starting their own legal cannabis markets, legalization conversations at the state level will only continue to heat up over the next four years. Philly’s next mayor and City Council will most likely have to deal with the implications of these discussions within their first term — from crafting ordinances that allow how many, and which, cannabis businesses can operate in the city, to determining how the money generated from cannabis tax revenues are allocated and used.

So where do candidates stand? Former Councilmember Derek Green, who dropped out of the race, was the front-runner in supporting cannabis legalization by advocating for medical marijuana use and creating a legal and taxed cannabis market in Philadelphia. The other candidates have been largely mum on the topic. Why?

Across the nation, nearly 60% of Americans say marijuana should be legal for adult recreational use, yet Philly’s current mayoral candidates have not addressed legalization as a possible solution to the city’s woes around public safety. States that have legalized cannabis for adult use have gotten creative with using the new stream of revenue generated by this multibillion-dollar industry to address harms done by overpolicing, mass incarceration, and the war on drugs — all contributing factors that lead to poverty, blight, and community destabilization. A similar program exists in Illinois. Colorado uses its marijuana tax revenue to support schools.

States that have legalized cannabis have also found ways to address racial and social justice issues around incarceration. New Jersey, for instance, has automatically expunged marijuana-related convictions or arrests, allowing hundreds of thousands of people to be free of their burdened past.

» READ MORE: To truly celebrate 4/20, we must legalize cannabis for adult use in Pennsylvania | Opinion

Despite the move toward legalization in many parts of the country, people in Pennsylvania (including Philly) are still being locked up or cited for weed. And remember, if you’re Black in Pennsylvania, you’re more than three times more likely to be arrested for cannabis possession than a white person, even though white and Black people use it at similar rates.

Recently, a West Philly cannabis lounge was raided by police. The owner had tried to create a safe space where people could buy and consume marijuana and hemp-derived products, a place of health and wellness in a neighborhood beset by poverty and gun violence.

This Black-owned business had created a nurturing environment for cannabis patients and community members. The police tried to take that away. What do the candidates think about this?

If Philadelphia mayoral candidates ever saw an opportunity to address a popular issue while centering racial, social, and economic justice, cannabis legalization is the right topic to bring up. They should take an opportunity to address how they’d legalize cannabis in the most equitable and accessible manner. The city wants it.

Tauhid Chappell is an executive board member of the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists, a cannabis patient, and founder of the Color of Cannabis and CannAtlantic Conferences. He’s a founder of the Philadelphia CannaBusiness Association.