{"id":61114,"date":"2014-01-23T14:05:50","date_gmt":"2014-01-23T19:05:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=61114"},"modified":"2014-06-09T19:37:50","modified_gmt":"2014-06-10T00:37:50","slug":"marijuana-policing-as-a-civil-rights-issue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2014\/01\/23\/marijuana-policing-as-a-civil-rights-issue\/","title":{"rendered":"Marijuana Policing as a Civil Rights Issue"},"content":{"rendered":"

Young black adults are less likely than whites to use marijuana, but extraordinarily more likely to be arrested for its use, according to a\u00a0new report<\/a> by the ACLU. \u00a0This is old news, but the data never fails to stun.<\/p>\n

First, notice that arrests for marijuana possession have grown over the past 15 years, even relative to arrests for other types of drugs. \u00a0The first chart is total marijuana possession arrests, the second is the percent of all drug arrests that were for marijuana (note that in neither chart does the vertical axis start at zero and truncated axes tend to make data look more dramatic, as if that were necessary here).<\/p>\n

\"Screenshot<\/a> \"Screenshot<\/a>This rise in arrests has disproportionately affected African Americans. \u00a0The arrest rate for blacks has consistently been substantially higher than that of whites, but it increased, even so, over the 2000s.
\n\"Screenshot<\/a><\/p>\n

According to the report:<\/p>\n

…in every state the Black arrest rate is disproportionate to Blacks\u2019 percentage of the population. \u00a0In fact, in 42 states the Black percentage of marijuana possession arrests is more\u00a0than double the Black percentage of the population, while in 18 states Blacks account\u00a0for more than three times the percentage of marijuana possession arrests than they do\u00a0of the population. \u00a0In four states, the difference is a factor of at least four.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Most of these arrests are of young people. \u00a0Almost half (46%) involve 18 to 24 year olds:<\/p>\n

\"Screenshot<\/a><\/p>\n

The black arrest rate cannot be attributed to different rates of use. \u00a0Overall, blacks and whites have very similar rates of marijuana use (the first figure below), but among 18 to 25 year olds — the population being arrested the most — whites have slightly higher rates than blacks (second figure):
\n\"Screenshot<\/a> \"Screenshot<\/a>This is a long-standing, well-documented Civil Rights issue. \u00a0The war on drugs is a war on black people. \u00a0These practices are harmful to individuals, their families, and their communities. \u00a0It functions to further the disadvantage faced by black Americans in a society rife with institutions already stacked against them.<\/p>\n

More than half of Americans\u00a0would like to see marijuana legalized<\/a>. \u00a0Legalizing or decriminalizing marijuana would relieve this egregious attack on black communities and save states billions of dollars. \u00a0There is little downside. \u00a0Relative to other substances,\u00a0it’s a minor problem<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Screenshot<\/a>Cross-posted at Pacific Standard<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\nLisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em>American Hookup<\/a>, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em>Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a>.\u00a0You can follow her on Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Young black adults are less likely than whites to use marijuana, but extraordinarily more likely to be arrested for its use, according to a\u00a0new report by the ACLU. \u00a0This is old news, but the data never fails to stun. First, notice that arrests for marijuana possession have grown over the past 15 years, even relative […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":61127,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2056,237,253,8118,283,285,1760,20063,1757],"class_list":["post-61114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crimelaw","tag-drugs","tag-history","tag-organizationsinstitutions","tag-prejudicediscrimination","tag-raceethnicity","tag-raceethnicity-blacksafricans","tag-raceethnicity-prejudicediscrimination","tag-raceethnicity-whiteseuropeans"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2014\/01\/27.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61114"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61114\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61574,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61114\/revisions\/61574"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}