Pubdate: Wed, 05 Jun 2013 Source: Denver Post (CO) Copyright: 2013 The Denver Post Corp Contact: http://www.denverpost.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/122 Author: Suzanne Gamboa, The Associated Press Page: 16A Referenced: http://mapinc.org/url/KWP0ZYTk (ACLU Report) POT ARRESTS NEARLY 4 TIMES AS LIKELY FOR BLACKS, ACLU SAYS Washington (AP) - Black people are arrested for possessing marijuana at a higher rate than white people, even though marijuana use by both races is about the same, the American Civil Liberties Union reports in a new study. The ACLU's analysis of federal crime data, released Tuesday, found marijuana arrest rates for black people were 3.73 times greater than those for white people nationally in 2010. In some counties, the arrest rate was 10 to 30 times greater for blacks. In two Alabama counties, 100 percent of those arrested for marijuana possession were black, the ACLU said. When it comes to marijuana use, about 14 percent of black people and 12 percent of white people reported in 2010 that they had used the drug during the previous year, according to data that the ACLU obtained from the National Drug Health Survey, a Health and Human Services publication. Among younger people ages 18-25, use was greater among whites. An overall increase in marijuana possession arrests from 2001 to 2010 is largely attributable to drastic increases in arrests of black people, the ACLU said. Blacks were arrested at a rate of 537 per 100,000 people nationally in 2001. In 2010, their arrest rate rose to 716 per 100,000. The 2001 number for white people was 191 per 100,00 and rose to 192 per 100,000 in 2010, the ACLU said. Despite the disparate rates, far more whites were arrested for marijuana possession in 2010, 460,808 compared to blacks, 286,117. Ezekiel Edwards, lead author of the ACLU study, attributed the disparate arrest rates to racial profiling by police seeking to pad their arrest numbers with "low-level" arrests in "certain communities that they have kind of labeled as problematic." "While this country moves in some ways in a more progressive direction on marijuana policy in a lot of places, in other places, people are getting handcuffed, jailed and getting criminal records at racially disparate rates all around the country," Edwards said. Police simply operate from the standpoint that "the use of marijuana is a crime," said Jim Pasco, executive director of the National Fraternal Order of Police. The ACLU supports legalization of marijuana and regulation through taxation and licensing. It also supports eliminating criminal and civil penalties for marijuana possession. If those two options are not possible, the ACLU supports punishment for marijuana possession with only civil penalties, which is often referred to as decriminalizing marijuana possession. The unequal arrests rates are not confined to a single region of the U.S. or in urban areas with larger black populations, the ACLU said. That discrepancy is found throughout the country, regardless of the size of the black population or the location and at all income levels, the data shows. - --- MAP posted-by: Matt