Pubdate: Wed, 31 Jul 2013
Source: Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Column: Higher Ground
Copyright: 2013 C.E.G.W./Times-Shamrock
Contact:  http://www.metrotimes.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1381
Author: Larry Gabriel

DOUBLE STANDARDS

Singular Repercussions

There has been a strange disconnect with the African-American 
community and activism against the War on Drugs. Statistics show that 
while blacks and whites use drugs at about the same percentage - 
thus, there are a lot more white people using drugs because, well, 
there are a lot more white people - blacks go to jail for drug 
offenses at a much higher rate than whites, and serve longer 
sentences for them.

The mantra among drug-war reformers is that drug use should be 
treated as a public health issue rather than a criminal issue. 
Although drugs are illegal, in affluent communities the health issue 
approach is more often applied as families send members to 
rehabilitation and counseling.

We've all seen how celebrities with substance abuse issues end up in 
clinics time after time for their problems. Poor black kids don't go 
to posh detox facilities; they go to jail.

One would think that African-Americans would be up in arms about this 
double standard, but, by and large, the face of drug war opposition 
has been white. Most black community leaders have either been silent, 
arguing there are more important concerns for black people, or 
conservative on the issue.

For instance, retired Detroit Police Chief Ike McKinnon said he 
believed marijuana should be legalized a couple of years ago. When I 
inquired why he hadn't come out about that earlier, he said that no 
one had ever asked him. African-Americans have not been out front 
when it comes to publicly opposing the War on Drugs.

Times are changing. The worm started to turn in 2010, when Michelle 
Alexander published The New Jim Crow. Her book used the stark 
evidence of numbers to show how the War on Drugs has resulted in 
imprisoning a huge amount of African-Americans - and put them under 
the supervision of law enforcement - creating an underclass not 
unlike that of the Jim Crow era.

Stop-and-frisk laws such as New York's have resulted in police 
arresting hundreds of thousands of young black and Latino men from 
inner-city neighborhoods, while the practice is nonexistent in white 
suburban areas - even though drug use there is as rampant as anywhere else.

Since then, Alexander and Law Enforcement Against Prohibition 
executive director Neil Franklin, an African-American former police 
officer, were instrumental in convincing national NAACP leadership to 
support a resolution against the War on Drugs in 2011. Ironically 
we've heard hardly a peep on the subject from the Detroit Chapter. 
Nobody from there ever returns my calls for comment.

"The [local] NAACP will not embrace the discussion," says Joe White, 
a local African-American activist and educator. White does 
presentations based on data in Alexander's book and the documentary 
film The House I Live In, winner of the Grand Jury prize for 
documentaries at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival.

Indeed, when Proposal M, decriminalizing possession of an ounce or 
less of marijuana for adults on private property, was on the ballot 
last year, the organization had nothing to say about it. Neither did 
the City Council after it passed. "Initially, when the law was 
passed, the standing City Council would not come out and speak on 
it," White says. "Drugs: When that word is mentioned people turn 
their heads the other way. They say that 'now is not the right time 
to talk about that.' If not now, when?"

White's choice to address the subject is a result of personal 
experience. His wife suffers from multiple sclerosis and is a medical 
marijuana patient. He says she was wasting away in a nursing home 
before she tried it. "For two-and-a-half years it has been her 
primary medication, no prescription drugs whatsoever," White says. 
"Her doctor says she has never seen an MS patient respond so well to 
something. Her doctor says she can't come out and speak on it because 
it's a Schedule 1 drug. Her license could be on the line for saying 
yes to marijuana."

But in addition to personal experience, he also sees the scourge the 
War on Drugs has had on the community. "Entire communities of Detroit 
have been felonized to where no one in that community can get a job," 
White says. "Damage goes beyond just being arrested and thrown in jail."

Families and communities are often devastated when members go to 
jail. Even later, after convicts return to the community, they can't 
find work; nor can they get federal aid for education or housing. In 
the meantime, their kids have been growing up missing parents and 
financial support.

"The Children's Center in Detroit has a high population of children 
there because a parent was sent to jail," White says. "That exposes 
them to more potential harm. That's my argument when they talk about 
harm to children. You cause more harm when you arrest one or both 
parents. When people claim you're going to cause harm to children, 
they never have any evidence to back up their opinion. In the 
countries that have legalized drugs, they have noticed a reduction in 
youth use. We need to get the correct information out to the public."

I ran into White at a recent appearance by Detroit City Council 
candidate George Cushingberry Jr. at Woodward Health Solutions, in 
Detroit's second council district. Cushingberry, a former state 
representative and Wayne County commissioner, is another 
African-American who has chosen to speak out on his support for 
marijuana reform.

He touted that his grandfather used to grow hemp in Kentucky and 
assessed marijuana as different from other drugs. "We need to 
deschedule marijuana away from cocaine and heroin," he said. After 
pointing out that our fastest growing drug abuse problem is 
Oxycontin, he called for "drug treatment on demand no matter what the 
addiction."

Unlike other candidates, Cushingberry has actively engaged marijuana 
activists, arguing that police resources shouldn't be wasted 
arresting young people for a joint. During a July webcast of the 
Planet Green Trees radio program, he promised activists they would 
"have a real friend on the City Council."

State Rep. Fred Durhal, a mayoral candidate, has supported medical 
marijuana while in the state House but has not spoken out about it 
during his current campaign.

Maybe we should pay more attention to how government policy has 
affected our city. White considers Detroit ground zero when it comes 
to the effects of the War on Drugs. The drug war is devastating 
communities across the nation, and Detroit seems to be the most 
devastated city in the nation. "Anytime you have a war, there is 
collateral damage," White says. "That's what happens to those who are 
indirectly damaged by actions."

Bad Surprise

Most folks know that voters in Washington state and Colorado chose to 
legalize marijuana last year. While those programs won't roll out 
until Jan. 1, 2014, apparently federal agents in Washington have 
decided to get busy.

Last week they raided four medical marijuana facilities in the state. 
According to a DEA spokesperson, all of the raided facilities have a 
history of violating state medical marijuana law, and they were 
included in raids that took place in 2011. There is no indication on 
how the DEA will respond when state licensed marijuana dispensaries 
open up after the new year.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom