Pubdate: Thu, 06 Jun 2013
Source: Ottawa Citizen (CN ON)
Copyright: 2013 The Ottawa Citizen
Contact: http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/letters.html
Website: http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/326
Author: William Marsden
Page: 9

UNBALANCED U.S. WAR ON MARIJUANA

De Marcus Sanders lives in the small city of Waterloo, smack in the
middle of Iowa farm country. Several years ago, he was driving his car
through town playing his music a little too loud, so a police officer
pulled him over.

"My music was up," he later told a researcher with the American Civil
Liberties Union. "So I didn't argue with him."

The officer said he smelled marijuana and searched Sanders' car. When
he found one marijuana seed on the floor, he arrested him. Sanders
pleaded guilty to possession and got 30 days in jail.

But that was only the beginning of his punishment. He lost his job as
a janitor and also lost the credits he was taking in college. He ended
up owing the state $2,346 in fines, court and prison costs. He also
lost his driver's licence. Waterloo is not pedestrian friendly.
Without a licence, he said, he couldn't find work because he had no
transportation.

Sanders is black and his story is repeated with shocking frequency in
communities of every size and shape throughout the United States.

The issue is vividly illustrated in a study released this week by the
ACLU of marijuana arrests between 2001 and 2010 .

The study shows that literally in every state and community in the
U.S. there is a huge racial disparity in marijuana arrests despite the
fact that the rate of marijuana use is about identical between whites
and blacks.

On average, 3.73 times more blacks are arrested than whites. In some
states, this rate rises to five.

"Just as with the larger drug war, the War on Marijuana has, quite
simply, served as a vehicle for police to target communities of
colour," the report states.

Ezekiel Edwards, director of the ACLU's criminal law-reform project
and lead author of the study, said he was stunned by its findings. "I
think that what I was really struck by was that the disparity existed
everywhere," he said in an interview.

"We looked at hundreds and hundreds of counties in this country and in
virtually every one, blacks were more likely to be arrested. In some
places it was five, 10, 15, 20 times more likely. In some places, it's
breathtaking."

The study shows that blacks are targeted no matter where they live,
where they go, wealthy or poor, within small or large black
communities.

Why are there such racial disparities and why are they getting worse?
"I think one of the things is that police are still fighting this war
on drugs," Edwards said.

"They get money from the federal government to do a lot of
heavy-handed drug enforcement. They measure their productivity by the
number of arrests they make. And so they go to the places ... where
they can easily find marijuana by stopping and frisking people with
little political risk. Maybe cops are falling into this thing where
whites are allowed to do this (smoke dope) but blacks aren't. It's
hard to know."

In other words, frisk a white guy coming out of a bar and watch his
community go nuts and your career die. Stop a black guy and chances
are nobody cares.

While the racial aspects of marijuana arrests are the most disturbing
finding in this report, it is also significant that U.S. police are
still spending massive amounts of time and resources chasing after
simple pot possession. The study shows the number of marijuana arrests
continues to rise, as does the racial disparity.

In Canada in 2010, there were 58,000 arrests for marijuana possession,
up 14 per cent over the previous year. Pot activists blamed the Harper
government's tough-on-crime policies for the sudden increase. But
hardly anybody gets jail time. It's just a fine or a caution.

That same year, the U.S. arrested 784,021 people for marijuana
possession, of whom 20,000 were jailed solely for that reason. Sanders
was one of them. Pot arrests have climbed steadily since 2002 to the
point where they now account for almost half of all drug arrests in
America.

Financial costs are enormous - about $3.6 billion US annually to state
treasuries. A CATO study claimed the U.S. would pocket $8.7 billion
annually in tax revenue if marijuana were legalized. The human costs
are much greater. "If you get a marijuana conviction you can lose
eligibility for housing, student financial aid, lose your job and
jeopardize future employment," Edwards said.

Is the U.S. winning the war on drugs? Not even close. Pot use and
availability has increased. The majority of Americans favour
legalization of marijuana. Colorado and Washington have legalized it.
But powerful forces work against them: The U.S. prison system is corporate.
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