By Duke London
To the rest of the world, California seems like a westernized Amsterdam, a half-baked haven for stoners. But is it really as pot-friendly as we think? New data suggests otherwise.
Though California blazed the trail for medical marijuana in America back in 1996 and decriminalized possession of under an ounce of the plant in 2010 under Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, the marijuana culture hasn’t been quite as advertised for people from all walks of life.
A recent study from the Drug Policy Alliance shows nearly half a million people in California have been locked up for marijuana-related reasons in the last decade alone. The DPA, who has been instrumental in the movement to pass Prop 64, conducted the research to counter claims from the opposition that California is pretty much a legalized state for marijuana already.
Scott Chipman, the Southern California chair of Citizens Against Legalizing Marijuana, said last month, “Ask law enforcement, they’re not looking for marijuana users now. Right now we have backdoor legalization. The problem in California is we have too much marijuana.”
Jolene Forman, the DPA’s staff attorney, rebutted that claim, “While many people believe that marijuana is essentially legal in California, data show us that thousands continue to be arrested annually for marijuana activities. These arrests fall disproportionately on Black and Latino Californians. The only way to begin to repair these disparities is to move marijuana into a fully regulated market and to reduce or eliminate criminal prohibitions for minor marijuana activities,” said Forman.
The report shows that while African-Americans and Latinos consume and sell marijuana at a proportionate rate to Whites, they are arrested at a far higher rate. African-Americans are arrested for marijuana offenses three-and-a-half times more than White offenders, while Latinos are locked up 35% more than their Caucasian counterparts.
Alice Huffman, the California NAACP President, said, “I am hopeful that marijuana legalization, as proposed in Prop. 64, will deal a blow to discriminatory marijuana enforcement in California.”
We are too.
