Pubdate: Mon, 09 Mar 2015
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Copyright: 2015 The Washington Post Company
Contact: http://mapinc.org/url/mUgeOPdZ
Website: http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/491
Author: Courtland Milloy

IN SOME RESPECTS, DISTRICT POT USERS ARE STILL WAITING IN VAIN FOR JUSTICE

During a visit with reggae singer Bob Marley in 1978, I asked him 
about the effects that smoking marijuana had on him. Relaxing in the 
sunroom of his home in Kingston, Jamaica, he said marijuana clarified 
his inner vision and inspired songs about peace and justice.

Out of the "holy smoke," as Marley called it, came a plume of music 
that wafted far beyond the Jamaican shores, such as "Get Up, Stand 
Up" and another, written by fellow reggae singer Peter Tosh, called 
"Legalize It."

Now, decades later, the District appears to be singing along. In 
November, residents motivated in large part by racial disparities in 
arrests for marijuana possession voted to legalize pot. The law took 
effect Feb. 26.

"This is a watershed moment," Seema Sadanandan, policy director for 
the American Civil Liberties Union of the Nation's Capital, told me 
recently. "This is the first marijuana reform in the country driven 
by racial justice."

No doubt the prophetic Marley, who died in 1981, would have been 
impressed by the victory. But perhaps not so much by what has 
happened since. Smoking pot legally does not appear to have inspired 
a sharper vision of justice, but rather pipe dreams of marijuana 
clubs, community pot gardens and a Seattle-style "Smoke-In" on the Mall.

"The idea of how many plants you could grow or where you could hold 
weed parties was never the focus of the issue," said the Rev. Graylan 
Hagler, pastor of Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ in 
Northeast Washington and a member of a coalition of ministers who 
supported legalization. "What we were looking at was the 
ramifications of legalized discrimination in which black people were 
being disproportionately arrested for marijuana possession."

The focus on justice has not been lost altogether. In fact, the D.C. 
Council has endorsed legislation that Hagler and other supporters of 
legalization deem important: banning preemployment drug testing and 
allowing records of nonviolent marijuana convictions to be sealed.

But these proposals are narrow, marijuana-focused tweaks with 
pitfalls that could end up hurting the very people they are meant to help.

For instance, employers may be prohibited from testing job applicants 
until after a job offer is made. But they can test employees, and may 
choose to do so more rigorously. Anyone who can't stay clean long 
enough to apply for a job is not likely to stay clean long enough to 
keep one. What's needed is more drug treatment, not more drug enabling.

As for sealing a criminal record, that's not the same as having it 
expunged. Fewer people may be able to see under the seal, but what's 
there can be seen. Telling a prospective employer that you don't have 
a record could get you caught in a lie.

The push to end racially biased marijuana arrests had resulted in a 
more expansive view of justice.

"We held hundreds of community meetings, went into schools and 
churches and talked to people on the street to build support for 
legalization," Sadanandan said. "They were concerned about police 
jump-out squads and 'stop and frisk' policies. What people were 
saying is that we need to have a conversation about the core values 
of the city, and whether our resources are being used in the best way 
to make it safer."

The extraordinary coalition of activists in the legalization effort 
embodied those values.

Ministers spoke to their congregations about the injustice in 
marijuana arrests. Black support for the measure jumped from 37 
percent four years ago to more than 60 percent in the days leading up 
to the election.

Pot smokers, arguing that marijuana was harmless and that they were 
tired of living like criminals, had found a powerful ally. Add to 
them libertarians opposed to government overreach and newly arrived 
millennials who had not only found a politically progressive cause, 
but also one that could be fun.

Now the coalition appears to have drifted apart, like so much smoke.

In the afterglow of victory, D.C. Cannabis Campaign chair Adam 
Eidinger declared, "The sun and the rain are still free, and now our 
seeds are, too."

Those could have been lyrics from a Marley song - except that his 
would have been referring to the seeds of justice.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom