Pubdate: Wed, 05 Jun 2013
Source: Albuquerque Journal (NM)
Copyright: 2013 Albuquerque Journal
Contact:  http://www.abqjournal.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/10
Author: Suzanne Gamboa, The Associated Press
Page: A5

ACLU: BLACKS CHARGED MORE OFTEN FOR HAVING POT

Whites Use Drug Almost As Much

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.
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