WEED WEDNESDAY
On Wednesday (and other other days as well), I will post a cannabis-related article or story.
Cannabis Legalization in the United States Isn't Helping Those Who Need It Most
Drug Policy Alliance released a report recently titled From Prohibition to Progress: A Status Report on cannabis Legalization. The report features findings from studies made of the first 8 US states in which cannabis was made at least partially legal for some adults.
Contained within the report is a lot of pretty good news. Probably some things you've come to expect by now, if you pay attention to the cannabis world. Arrests have plummeted in states which have legalized cannabis for some adults. This saves hundreds of millions of dollars and spares the lives of those who would've otherwise had their lives turned upside down because of the failed war on drugs, which was ramped up in the 1970s under Richard Nixon's watch.
Then, of course, there are the stories of how the money taken in taxes from sales of legal cannabis are helping communities. You've probably heard already that Colorado was able to use help their schools with $230 million from cannabis sales. That's great, right?
Hold on a second. One of the most damaging aspects of the failed war on drugs by far was the disproportionate rate at which it affected minorities. Surely, legalization has corrected this wrong, and that should be the focus of the findings... right? Wrong.
It's sadly not all that surprising in this society, but the findings show that cannabis legalization has helped white people the most, and that there is still a stark contrast between ways in which legalization has helped members of different races.
Some examples from the report:
- In Colorado, cannabis arrests for white people decreased by 51%, but only decreased by 33% for Latinx people and 25% for black people between 2012 and 2014.
- The post-legalization arrest rate for black people in Washington is double the arrest rate for other races and ethnicities.
- A black person in Washington, D.C. is **11 times more likely **than a white person to be arrested for public consumption of cannabis.
- In Alaska, black people were arrested for cannabis at a rate of 17.7 per 100,000 in 2016, while white people were arrested at a rate of 1.8 per 100,000 — about 10 times less.
Overall statistics
Statistics for Alaska
Statistics for Washington, DC
There are multiple reasons for this problem, in my opinion. One of them is that legalization is neither broad enough, nor does it go far enough. When you make a substance legal within some imaginary lines (state borders) but a felony outside of them (and inside technically because of federal law), then things are far more complicated than they need to be.
People have been growing, distributing, and using cannabis amongst themselves, in the shadows of the black market for as far back as prohibition has existed. Simply removing cannabis form the ridiculous controlled substances act isn't as crazy or unrealistic has the bureaucrats would have you believe. Instead of rewarding those who built up their own successful underground markets (albeit in defiance of the law, but when a law is unjust, I think we must break it), we're still locking them in cages, and the money just flows to the other side of the tracks like it always does.
Another one is our police state and racial profiling. A lot of police are tragically just more likely to stop and harass essentially anyone who isn't white. The problem is bad enough that the ACLU of Maryland has a survey on their site which can be filled out anonymously by people who feel that they have been racially profiled and searched for cannabis.
If you're like me, you're still shaking your head, wondering when this madness will truly be over. Until then, we are not truly free. Stay strong! Especially since Trump said last night in his State of the Union speech that he intends to "get much tougher" on drugs.
Thank you for reading this far, if you did! If you liked this post, would you please consider giving it an upvote or sharing it with your followers? I would truly appreciate it. Thanks!
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