It's Not Just NYC: Across America, Only Black and Brown People Get Arrested for Pot

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/drugs/156345/it%27s_not_just_nyc%3A_across_america%2C_only_black_and_brown_people_get_arrested_for_pot/

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New York City, the pot-bust capital of the Western world, is notorious for the racial skewing of its marijuana arrests. Over the last 15 years, more than 85 percent of the half-million-plus people charged with misdemeanor possession there have been black or Latino.

But the racial ratios of reefer roundups are equally extreme—if not worse—in scores of other U.S. cities. In Atlanta, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Washington, more than 80 percent of the people popped for pot possession are black. In Minneapolis and its Hennepin County suburbs, black people are 11 percent of the population and more than half of those busted for buds.

“Just about every major metropolitan area in the country has similar disparity issues,” says Neill Franklin, executive director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition and former commander of the Maryland State Police’s drug bureau.

“With minor variations, it’s the same everywhere,” says Jon Gettman, a visiting professor of criminal justice at Shenandoah University in Virginia. Gettman, says Allen St. Pierre of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, has been researching marijuana-arrest numbers more obsessively than anyone for the last 20 years, extracting them from data in the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report.

[Reasonable_Argument]

1. Hopefully

States will pass outright legalization of cannabis and get the ball rolling for a full repeal of its prohibition

[ananda]

2. This needs more public awareness.

It's racial profiling of the worst sort.

This kind of thing also serves to disenfranchise
many people, feed the criminal justice and/or
prison industry, and supposedly placate the fear
of darkskinned people and immigrants.

[HiPointDem]

4. also destroy families and communities, generate hate, distrust and anti-civic spirit.

i was just watching an interview where david simon said inside baltimore juries vote to acquit more often than the reverse, as is the case in the suburbs.

then he said that there was a history of arresting people in the city on sweeps on phony
'suspicion' for various reasons (like juking stats) which might explain the different reactions to police presenting evidence.

[HiPointDem]

3. kr

[Brian Kelly]

5. Legalize Nationwide

The latest Rasmussen poll shows that at least fifty-six percent of Americans want marijuana legalized. That percentage grows on a daily basis.

Marijuana legalization nationwide is an inevitable reality that is approaching much sooner than prohibitionists think, and there is nothing they can do to stop it.

Legalize Nationwide!

[Scuba]

7. Stop making sense! Oh, and welcome to DU!!!

[Coyotl]

6. I want to see the statistics for how many voters have been disenfranchised nationwide by drug laws

And, what is the sum effect of Mr. Nixon's war on political enemies, how many elections have been won by Republicans over these many decades because of the millions of liberal people they screwed over with drug laws.

[Burma Jones]

8. Fear of Black and Brown People are a big reason it was made illegal in the first place

Here's where I would normally spew a string of obscenities....

[NOLALady]

12. Can't help but wonder

why they were afraid. Or, maybe fear was just an excuse to perpetuate Jim Crow laws. The Jim Crow laws that were meant to keep people of color in their place.

[iamthebandfanman]

9. around here everyone gets arrested for pot...

trust me.

im sure its still disproportional here as well, but i swear our local cops do nothing but ride around and look for people smoking pot.

i see drunk drivers all the time (even call on them, no police response..just dispatch saying 'okay well get someone out that way')... with no results what so ever.
something tells me if i said 'and it smells like marijuana behind them' , they would have been there in minutes.

our local police are pretty useless for anything except catching what they call 'dope heads'..
i watch people run stop signs... go over 15+ ... illegally pass... and this is ALL IN TOWN!!

the only people ive seen pulled over for traffic violations are people who get caught by the state cop who passes through every day!
ive almost been killed countless times by stupid drivers doing illegal things, even RIGHT INFRONT OF A CRUISER ... and nothing is ever done!!
again, if we were both smoking a doobie i bet that would have been different!

[pscot]

10. So the War on Pot violates our civil rights?

I guess eric Holder will just have to give himself a slap on the wrist.

[JNelson6563]

11. Except where there aren't (m)any

Where I live it's not a whole lot more diverse than a klan rally. Not a whole lot of crime but the cops up here will go after some poor sod with a tiny bit of pot like a serial killer.

Needless to say they are white and almost always poor.

Julie

[raouldukelives]

13. It shows no signs of slowing down.

Almost comical to look at the crimes the people & corporations at the top get away with in comparison. The steal billions, commit war crimes, run guns, launder drug money & ravage the environment leading to years of illness and needless suffering of the children and animals born there and walk away spotless.
On the flip side they spend countless man hours doing surveillance and staking out of Medical Marijuana Dispensaries and patients. Raking up 1000's of hours of overtime trying to bust one person for fifty bucks worth of a plant.
I recall reading one story on here about a High School kid being entrapped by a female undercover agent posing as another HS kid. They spend months doing undercover and surveillance work to bust one kid for a bag of weed. Just think about that. What does it cost to have all of that police work done to get a kid for $50 of weed? Maybe $30,000? $50,000? Now just repeat that effort across the country in many schools and we can get a rough estimate of where our tax money goes.
Just imagine if we spent $50,000 getting undercover officers into Wall St. Posing as bankers or traders and luring people into accepting stock tips or insider secrets and then nailing them to the wall. I think that would go much further in quelling the harshest crimes committed against us than another dime bag out of the hands of a cancer sufferer.
Of course they know this and it would never be allowed. Might nab a golf partner or a buddy by mistake. Why, it could harm investments and the free market if people had to be in fear of staying within the limits of the law. That's only for the peasants.