Pubdate: Sun, 12 Jan 2014
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Copyright: 2014 The Washington Post Company
Contact: http://mapinc.org/url/mUgeOPdZ
Website: http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/491
Authors: Stacey Patton and David J. Leonard
Note: 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.

IF YOU'RE WHITE, FEEL FREE TO SMOKE UP

Stacey Patton and David J. Leonard Say Black and Latino Americans 
Face Harsher Penalties for Marijuana Use

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.

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, do-rags 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 Latino 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 all 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. In parts of 
Louisiana, which arrests 13,000 people each year for marijuana 
possession, black people are 11 times more likely to be arrested for it.

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 that we will be wrong and that recent legal shifts mark the 
end of a racially divided war on drugs. But while Colorado and 
Washington certainly 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. And as state budgets are slashed 
and taxes are cut in Colorado and Washington and throughout the 
country, decriminalization is tied to states' desire to cash in on 
the marijuana market. It's not about ending the war on drugs.

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, and the acceptance of medical marijuana, 
do 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 wink from the 
criminal justice system. The war on drugs has left white America 
relatively unscathed.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom