Pubdate: Sun, 12 Jan 2014
Source: Ledger-Enquirer (Columbus, GA)
Copyright: 2014 Ledger-Enquirer
Contact:  http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/237
Author: Stacey Patton and David J. Leornard
Note: Stacey Patton, senior enterprise reporter at the Chronicle of Higher
Education. David J. Leonard, associate professor and chairman of the Department
Of Critical Culture, Gender and Race Studies at Washington State
University.

WEED, WHITES AND 'CRIME'

Changing attitudes about marijuana do not alter the ugly reality of
America's real 'drug problem'

Has the new year started out on a high or a drugged-out low? The
decriminalization of marijuana in Washington and Colorado has been
heralded as the end of prohibition -- and alternately lamented as the
rock-bottom of America's morality.

But few have acknowledged the obvious: The media's images of mostly
scruffy-looking, smiling people, lined up to score some newly legal
dope, are overwhelmingly white.

Now imagine the reaction -- from the media, your mother and the
Justice Department -- if these lines were filled with young Hispanics
or African Americans with cornrows, do-rags and sagging pants? We can
almost hear the conversation shifting from warnings about the health
risks of "the munchies" to panic over marijuana as a "gateway drug" --
and the violence, gang activity and criminality it sows.

What's happening in Washington and Colorado isn't a shift so much as a
formalization of what has long been a reality: If you're white, you
can do drugs with relative impunity. No one law or state initiative
will be the nail in the coffin of America's failed war on drugs -- and
sadly, black and Hispanic Americans will continue to get locked up
while others are getting high.

According to a report by the American Civil Liberties Union, there
were 8 million marijuana arrests in the United States from 2001 to
2010. These arrests were anything but colorblind: Eighty-eight percent
were for possession, a crime for which black Americans are almost four
times more likely to be arrested than whites. While white and black
Americans use marijuana at roughly similar rates -- though whites ages
18 to 25 consistently surpass their black peers -- arrest rates are
nowhere near comparable. As of 2005, according to the American Bar
Association, African Americans represented 14 percent of drug users
(and of the population as a whole), yet accounted for 34 percent of
all drug arrests and 53 percent of those sent to prison for a drug
offense.

It is not a coincidence that marijuana has been decriminalized in
Washington and Colorado, but not in Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Iowa,
Pennsylvania, California, Indiana or Louisiana -- the seven states
with the highest rates of incarcerated black men. In parts of
Louisiana, which arrests 13,000 people each year for marijuana
possession, black people are 11 times more likely to be arrested for
marijuana.

It's not surprising that college campuses, bastions of white
privilege, have been at the forefront of decriminalization efforts. In
a 2007 study by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse,
researchers found that marijuana use among college students had more
than doubled from 1993 to 2005. The same study found that 4 percent of
college students smoke marijuana 20 times a month, yet the Drug
Enforcement Agency has not conducted drug sweeps of fraternity houses,
nor have stop-and-frisk tactics been deployed on college campuses.

We hope that we will be wrong and that recent legal shifts mark the
end of a racially divided war on drugs. But while Colorado and
Washington certainly aren't the whitest states in the nation --
Colorado is 14th and Washington 26th -- history has shown that
decriminalization, like the war on drugs itself, remains colored by
racism.

In 2009, Massachusetts decriminalized the possession of small amounts
of marijuana. While this resulted in a decline in overall arrests,
racial disparities continued. And although New York passed a
decriminalization bill in 1977 -- making possession of 25 grams or
less of marijuana punishable by a $100 fine for the first offense --
the NYPD still arrested about 440,000 people from 2002 to 2012, with
85 percent being black and Latino even though young whites use
marijuana at higher rates.

So forgive us if we are not ready to celebrate the most recent moves
to decriminalize marijuana. Decriminalization may lead to fewer
arrests of African Americans and Latinos. But the consequences of past
unjust arrests give us pause. And as state budgets are slashed and
taxes are cut in Colorado and Washington, and throughout the country,
decriminalization is tied to states' desire to cash in on the
marijuana market. It's not about ending the war on drugs.

After 40 years, the war on drugs has locked up millions of African
Americans and Latinos; it has destroyed families and communities. The
decriminalization movement, and the acceptance of medical marijuana,
do little to stop such damage.

If you listened to politicians, commentators and activists, you would
think America has undergone a dramatic change in drug-control policy
in a few weeks' time that will usher in a new day for race, crime and
punishment. We are unconvinced.

People with black and brown skin get very little leeway to experiment
or self-medicate with drugs. When they do use marijuana, they're much
more likely to be viewed as criminal. For white America, being young
and stupid, and having the ability to experiment with drugs and laugh
about it later -- as David Brooks, Bill Clinton, stop-and-frisk
defender Michael Bloomberg and plenty of others have done -- is the
embodiment of privilege. Breaking the law is often easily erased with
a breath mint, a high-priced lawyer, or just a nod and wink from the
criminal justice system. The war on drugs has left white America
relatively unscathed.

Stacey Patton, senior enterprise reporter at the Chronicle of Higher
Education.

David J. Leonard, associate professor and chairman of the Department
Of Critical Culture, Gender and Race Studies at Washington State
University.  
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