(ThyBlackMan.com) There are two brutal realities about the drug war that have long been recognized by many. One is that the drug war is a war on mostly poor, inner city Blacks. They are the ones most often arrested, fined and jailed for long stretches. The other is that the billions that are spent by state and federal law enforcement to wage the war should be spent on programs that repair and build these same targeted inner city communities and provide hope and opportunity for those in them. The drive to legalize marijuana is a huge first effort. The same gaping racial disparities are evident in the arrests, fines and imprisonment for marijuana possession and use. But it must be about more than just legalization. It must also be about redirecting the massive resources squandered on enforcement into initiatives that stress massive investment in Black and Brown communities.
Put bluntly, it’s not enough to legalize marijuana without a commitment to totally redirect the money spent on enforcement into investment to repair the decades of damage done by the war on drugs. The Institute of the Black World has taken the point on thi
s issue with its Drug Policy Reform Initiative. Its “The Adult Use of Marijuana Act” outlines a broad series of initiatives and proposals to “invest and repair” in communities of color torn asunder by the drug war. It backs completely the legalization effort precisely because it’s a matter first and foremost of racial and social and economic fairness and justice and it’s a weapon to put a dent in the mass incarceration of poor Blacks and Browns victimized by the drug war.
But the Institute has gone much further and lobbies state and local governments to plough the multi-billions spent annually on drug enforcement back into community reinvestment.
This means new state and federal initiatives, programs and a major ramp up in funding for job, skills training, counseling, and job creation programs, health care and family support services, affordable and accessible housing, expanded child care facilities, and minority business support and development. The Institute recognizes that some Blacks are deeply concerned about what they perceive as the harmful effects of drugs and are hesitant about legalization. This is understandable. However, the undeniable fact is that the drug war has not only been vicious and unrelenting in its targeting almost exclusively of Blacks and Browns.
Marijuana enforcement in California is a near textbook example of this. Blacks are twelve times more likely to be arrested for possession of marijuana in the state than whites. This wildly discriminatory enforcement has torn apart families, heightened unemployment by criminalizing tens of thousands of young Blacks, and decimated education opportunities for drug offenders during and after their release from incarceration, and has resulted in the voter disenfranchisement of thousands of drug offenders.
The greatest fallout from the nation’s failed drug war is that it has further embedded the widespread notion that the drug problem is exclusively a Black problem. This makes it easy for on-the-make politicians to grab votes, garner press attention, and balloon state prison budgets to jail more Black offenders, while continuing to feed the illusion that the nation is winning the drug war.
The problem with this, of course, that it has created a wall of resistance among far too many policy makers and some segments of the public to re-shift the billions spent on drug enforcement into new and greater investment initiatives in poor and underserved communities of color.
States such as Washington and Colorado have now legalized marijuana use. Voters in California will decide on legalization in November. The Institute fully supports the legalization initiative in California, but it will also push even harder for the vast sums spent on enforcement here and in other states to be invested in rebuilding communities of color, and that entails the participation by stakeholders in those communities in spotlighting and monitoring programs where and how the funds should be spent. The Institute’s message at the heart of its Drug Policy Reform Initiative is clear. Legalization and Regulation without investment to repair the damage of the war on drugs in communities of color is not enough. The Institute will battle hard to turn that message into firm policy change on the drug war.
Written By Earl Ofari Hutchinson
One can find more info about Mr. Hutchinson over at the following site; TheHutchinson ReportNews.
Also feel free to connect with him through twitter; http://twitter.com/earlhutchins
He is also an associate editor of New America Media. His forthcoming book is From King to Obama: Witness to a Turbulent History (Middle Passage Press).