Pubdate: Mon, 20 Jan 2014
Source: Albuquerque Journal (NM)
Copyright: 2014 Albuquerque Journal
Contact:  http://www.abqjournal.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/10
Author: Stacey Patton and David J. Leonard
Page: A7

LEGAL POT HAS NO EFFECT ON RACIAL DIVIDE

The War on Drugs Has Left White America Relatively
Unscathed

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, dorags 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 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. 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 we will be wrong and the legal shifts mark the end of a
racially divided war on drugs. But while Colorado and Washington
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.

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 does 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 a wink from the criminal justice
system. The war on drugs has left white America relatively unscathed.

Stacey Patton is a senior enterprise reporter at the Chronicle
of Higher Education. David J. Leonard is an associate professor and
chairman of the department of critical culture, gender and race
studies at Washington State University.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Matt