Pubdate: Tue, 20 Aug 2013
Source: Patriot-News, The (PA)
Copyright: 2013 The Patriot-News
Contact: http://www.pennlive.com/mailforms/patriotletters/
Website: http://www.pennlive.com/patriotnews/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1630
Author: Cynthia Tucker
Note: Cynthia Tucker is a syndicated columnist. Her work appears on Tuesday.

IT'S TIME TO LEGALIZE POT

Since his first year in office, President Barack Obama has drawn 
scathing critiques from a handful of prominent black critics, mostly 
for his failure to pursue an explicit "black" agenda aimed at 
ameliorating the legacy of racism.

Usually, I disagree with those critics, who are unrealistic about the 
limits of the presidency, unfair in their assessments of Obama's 
broader agenda and, most important, bizarrely naive about the 
tightrope he walks as the first black man to win the office. If he 
announced a "black" agenda, the rest of his presidency would be 
swallowed up by the ensuing controversy.

But there is one area where I believe Obama has failed black America: 
He has done next to nothing to rein in the so-called war on drugs. 
After decades of hyper-punitive policies that have excommunicated 
thousands of black men from the economic mainstream, Obama might have 
begun to substantially wind down his era's Prohibition.

Now, Attorney General Eric Holder is drawing praise for announcing a 
new policy intended to curb the fanatical, yet futile, drug war. 
Speaking to the American Bar Association recently, Holder said he 
would limit the use of mandatory minimum sentences that have resulted 
in long prison stretches for low-level offenders.

Tough mandatory sentences became popular years ago, when violent 
crime was still rising and prosecutors and politicians salved public 
fear by backing stiffer penalties -- even for non-violent crimes. The 
result has been a staggering increase in the prison population. The 
United States accounts for about 5 percent of the world's people but 
nearly 25 percent of its prison inmates.

Discriminatory enforcement has exacerbated the problem of draconian 
drug laws, and Holder knows all too well that racial bias remains 
pervasive in the criminal justice system. In his speech, he pointed 
to research that found "black male offenders have received sentences 
nearly 20 percent longer than those imposed on white males convicted 
of similar crimes."

But Holder's new policy, even if it works as well as he hopes, would 
do precious little to scale back the staggeringly expensive and 
unbelievably destructive drug war. For one thing, the beneficiaries 
of his new policy represent a high percentage of the federal prison 
population but a tiny portion of the prison population overall. Most 
inmates are in state facilities.

President Obama can't change marijuana policy at the state level, but 
he could use his bully pulpit to move states into the 21st century. 
Holder is hardly taking a bold step. Crime has declined so steeply 
over the last 15 years that there is very little political risk in 
shorter sentences for drug offenses. Spurred by overcrowded prisons 
and tight state budgets, even conservative governors and state 
legislators have begun to back away from imposing draconian prison sentences.

In Georgia, for example, Republican Gov. Nathan Deal and a 
GOP-dominated legislature have already pushed through significant 
criminal justice reform, including lesser punishments for low-level 
drug offenders.

If the Obama administration really wanted to leave a legacy of a 
fairer criminal justice system, it would decriminalize marijuana use 
at the federal level. Such a policy could help black citizens 
disproportionately without the controversy of an explicit "black" agenda.

The American Civil Liberties Union reported in June that black 
Americans are almost four times more likely to be arrested for 
marijuana possession than white people, even though blacks and whites 
use the drug at about the same rate.

Obama can't change marijuana policy at the state level, but he could 
use his bully pulpit to move recalcitrant state authorities into the 
21st century. According to an April Washington Post poll, 52 percent 
of Americans believe it should be legal. Indeed, voters in Colorado 
and Washington state have voted to legalize recreational use.

How has the Obama administration reacted to those states? By 
insisting on keeping the federal government's preposterous policy 
that bans marijuana for all purposes and even prohibits scientific 
research on cannabis. That's puzzling and unfortunate, especially 
since the president has freely admitted using marijuana as a 
teenager. While he managed to escape the long arm of the law, many 
black men have not.

Obama knows that, and it's disappointing that he has done so very 
little about it.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom